


Awaken Every Dragon

by NomDeGuerre



Series: No Armor Against Fate [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Female Obi-Wan Kenobi, Gen, Mandalorian Culture, Obi-Wan is adopted by a Mandalorian, Obi-Wan leaves the Jedi, Unreliable Narrator, Young Obi-Wan Kenobi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-08
Updated: 2020-04-07
Packaged: 2020-11-27 10:08:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 19,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20946590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NomDeGuerre/pseuds/NomDeGuerre
Summary: Instead of being sent to the mines of Bandomeer with Qui-Gon Jinn, a newly-enslaved Obi-Wan is taken off-world to be sold in more lucrative markets. A chance rescue by a Mandalorian bounty hunter who'd taken a contract on the slavers sets her, and perhaps the galaxy, on a new path.Cherry-picking interesting plot points from Disney canon and Legends canon. An alternate universe where Obi-Wan is female and leaves the Jedi Order at age 12, and is promptly adopted by a Mando'ad.Appendix chapter is a Mando'a glossary





	1. Lost and Found

**Author's Note:**

> Hello there. New writer for this fandom, but my muse hit me with the opening scene and wouldn't let me rest until I'd gotten it down in words. I hope what I can offer will entertain.
> 
> The title is from a Nikita Gill poem that I think fits Obi-Wan well.

Maddyr jammed his bucket on, the seal engaging around his neck and the HUD flicking on automatically. A few windows popped up in the periphery of his HUD view, syncing to his ship’s computers to give him readouts of the freighter he was docked to. It was dark from the EMP bomb he’d hit it with, but it still read as pressurized and all twelve lifesigns onboard were still strong. He’d get to have a little fun with his bounty this time. The prospect pleased him; Maddyr wasn’t particularly bloodthirsty, but he held slavers in a special place of hatred.

His ship was attached to the emergency hatch on the slave ship’s port side, and while the freighter had the usual security programs, Maddyr’s slicing algorithm easily cracked it and unlocked the hatch externally. Maddyr was only slightly surprised that no one started shooting at him the second he opened it, but the freighter _ was _ without power and without sensors to tell them where he was, the only way they’d know he was docked was if someone happened to be close enough to the emergency hatch to hear the thud and clanks. And the freighter was a large ship.

He still had his blasters out; he wasn’t a fool.

The bounty had been posted by a settlement in the Ryloth system, a small community that was tired of being preyed upon by slavers, craving justice against those who stole their people. After a recent raid, they had drawn themselves up as a community and scraped together the money to put out a modest bounty on the slavers responsible. Usually, Maddyr wouldn’t go for such a poor-paying job (it was a particularly poor settlement, made even more-so by the constant raids), but these slavers specialized in children. Putting blaster bolts through the heads of these _ demagolka’se _was payment in itself.

He worked his way through the freighter methodically, clearing each room and making a note of what the ship contained. He’d deliberately targeted them between slave runs (hunts could be chaotic enough without involving dozens of frightened civilians to deal with afterwards), so the large slave pens in the cargo hold were empty, but the ship was stocked with foodstuff, water, and spare parts for emergency repairs. All of it was valuable, and the slavers wouldn’t need any of it once they were dead.

He shot any slaver he encountered, usually before they’d even realized he was there. The benefits of a quality HUD, and a well-timed EMP bomb. They were working blind, and Maddyr had sensor readouts of the location of every possible threat on the ship.

Even though the bounty hadn’t specified providing proof-of-completion (first-timers often forgot that bit), Maddyr indulged himself by cutting off the hands of each slaver, sealing them up in a large biohazard stasis bag that would keep them fresh until he delivered them to the folks that posted the bounty. They might not have asked for it, but he thought they might appreciate it anyway.

The number of living things on the ship dropped steadily until there were only three: Maddyr himself, and two lifesigns in the aft crew quarters. Maddyr continued on, clearing rooms with the sort of languid calm of a predator hunting small prey. None of the slavers had given him trouble so far; the few times they’d managed to get a shot of their own off, it had hit the bulkheads around Maddyr, not particularly close or dangerous. He didn’t expect these last to give him any trouble, either. They might not even know he was coming; the EMP had taken out all the ship’s electronics, including any comm systems. If they didn’t hear the blasterfire, they wouldn’t know their comrades were dead.

Both lifesigns were in one of the rooms. Maddyr was down the hall and around a corner when the door to it opened, and one of the slavers stalked out, grumbling to himself.

“Kriffing layabouts can’t even reboot a ship properly. What did I even hire them for? I’ll gut the lot of them,” he complained, a certain sibilance to the words that hinted at Trandoshan physiology. Maddyr paused at the corner, double-checking the charge on his blasters even though he hadn’t shot near enough to deplete them. The _ thump-thump-thump _ of the slaver’s slow, heavy gait counted down for him, and at five, Maddyr swung around, shooting in the split second before the slaver registered his presence.

A Trandoshan, alright. Maddyr’s first and second shots impacted the wall next to the reptilian, but the third, fourth, and fifth struck him square in his center of gravity. He had time to snarl, clawed hand twitching toward his own blaster, before Maddyr’s sixth shot drilled a hole between his eyes.

The ex-slaver was knocked back against the wall, and left a smear of ash and blood as his lifeless body collapsed to the deck plating. Maddyr paused to collect the hands, then continued on to the door. There was a lock mechanism, screen dark, to one side, but the EMP would have knocked it out. In contrast to the external locks, most internal ones had a safety feature that forced them into the _unlocked_ position in the case of lost power—the disaster of losing power could only be compounded by being locked out of the engineering compartments—so Maddyr just grabbed the recessed handle on the door itself and manually yanked it open.

The room inside was dimly lit with orange emergency lights, like the rest of the ship, but with his HUD, Maddyr didn’t need full light to see. It still, however, took him a moment to locate the last lifesign on the freighter. When he did, he checked his blasters, pulling them up so the muzzles pointed at the ceiling, rather than at the… kid.

A small, dirty human kid. With, Maddyr noticed almost immediately, a clunky slave collar around their scrawny neck.

The grubby little thing stared back at Maddyr with grey-blue eyes hazed with an obvious dosing of sedative. He could see the struggle for focus, for concentration, behind that haze. The kid was fighting the drug, but losing. A large bruise darkened the left side of the kid’s face, and there were a number of tears and what looked like burns in the baggy clothes hanging off the slight, androgynous figure. They were sitting in the middle of a large bed.

Maddyr turned around and put a few more blaster bolts into the Trandoshan’s corpse, on principle. When he turned back, the kid was blinking a little more rapidly, sitting up straighter despite the wobbly waver of their head on their neck. Pretty significantly drugged, then.

There were no other lifesigns on the freighter, and no droid would have survived the EMP bomb. So, Maddyr turned on his headlamp and then tugged off his _ buy’ce _. The light wasn’t much, but it allowed the two of them to look each other in the face.

“Hey, _ adiik _,” he said as gently as he could. “You’re gonna be alright. The slavers are gone.”

Kriff, the kid just kept trying real hard to look at him through the sedative, blinking eyes sliding in and out of focus. Small hands clenched and released handfuls of their ragged clothes. They were a fighter. Maddyr felt a spark of affection and pride in the _ adiik _, their spirit speaking to him as a Mandalorian.

“The collar has an explosive.”

It wasn’t what he’d expect from a drugged, kidnapped, collared child. But it was helpful information, and Maddyr liked the kid more for it. He knelt down to put himself more on the kid’s level, reaching out but not touching just yet. “I understand. Will you let me take a look at it?”

“The Trandoshan had the remote.”

Maddyr had never had children, but his brother had three. They were good kids, proper _ Mando’ade _, but Maddyr wasn’t sure they’d have reacted quite so calmly to kidnap, enslavement, and drugging. “Did he? That’s good intel, kid, but I hit this tub with an EMP. Remote’s got to be fried. You’re probably lucky it didn’t trip this thing, too, but I didn’t think they had any slaves onboard.”

The kid nodded, then looked as if they regretted the motion. Maddyr automatically reached out to steady them with a hand to their back, then very carefully froze. Fortunately, the kid didn’t seem put off by the touch.

“I was… special,” they said. “Xanatos gave me to the slavers, and at first they were going to put me in the mines, but… They said I was worth more in the right markets.”

Maddyr suspected he knew what markets were meant, and gritted his teeth on a wave of rage. A deep breath in, then out, and he removed his hands as soon as the kid was steady again. Well, steady-ish.

“I can probably get that collar off, but I’ll need a minute to analyze the mechanisms. I’m going to put my helmet back on, so I can use its sensors, alright?”

“Yes,” the kid said, wisely forgoing the nod this time. Maddyr tugged his helmet back on, and got the scans running.

The results were mildly horrifying. An EMP destroyed electronics by causing massive electrical surges within them, frying delicate circuitry with abandon. Randomly slagging components of the explosive slave collar had a fifty-fifty chance of setting off the bomb. Maddyr hadn’t been lying when he said the kid was lucky. In _ this _ collar, the majority of the damage caused by the EMP had been to a resistor necessary to complete the circuit that triggered the explosives. The electrical surge had blitzed it, resulting in an open circuit. The circuit could not be completed, the explosives could not be set off.

Maddyr let out a relieved breath. “The collar’s basically a dud, now. I can just cut it off you right now.”

“Are you sure?” 

Maddyr let the insult to his tech skills go; kid had a bomb locked around their neck, and a stranger offering to cut it off, it was understandable to be a little gun-shy. “I’m sure, _ adiik _. Hold still.”

The kid obligingly tilted their head to the side, allowing Maddyr to slip a vibroknife between the tender skin of their throat, and the collar. The material parted easily, even the circuitry embedded in it giving way under the blade. Had the collar’s mechanisms been functional, it would have triggered the bomb.

The kid shivered, eyes closing, as he peeled the cut collar from their skin. “You good, kid?”

“Yes.” Grey-blue eyes opened, looked into the T-slit visor of his _ buy’ce _with a lot more awareness than previously. Maddyr felt vaguely like he’d missed something. “Thank you.”

“Don’t hold much with slavers,” Maddyr informed them bluntly. “You have somewhere to go, kid? I can take you back home.”

The kid hesitated. They’d mentioned someone had given them to the slavers. Maybe a family member? It wasn’t uncommon. “I don’t know.”

Maddyr quirked an eyebrow, though with his bucket back on, the kid couldn’t see it. “I’ll put it this way: Is anybody going to come looking for you?”

“Maybe…” Maddyr made a little ‘go on’ gesture. The kid fidgeted. “I was supposed to go to the AgriCorps…”

The light went on in Maddyr’s head. He groaned a little. “Ah kriff, you’re _ jetii _.”


	2. Best-laid Plans

Maddyr got the little _ jetii _ kid onto his ship, gave them firm instructions to make use of the sonic shower, kitchen, and bed, and went to work looting the slave freighter. He worked fast, hoping the Jedi wouldn’t track the slavers and find them before he had the chance to contact them first. It was only two years since Galidraan; there was little love lost between _ Mando’ade _ and _ jetii _. Maddyr did not want to run into any Jedi who might shoot first, rather than asking questions, upon finding their wayward charge in the company of a Mandalorian bounty hunter.

Since he’d already marked the supplies and gear he wanted to take from the freighter as he’d hunted its crew, it didn’t actually take him that long. He detached his ship from the slavers’, and put in the coordinates of the nearest spaceport. Failing any other plan, he’d drop the kid off at the local peacekeepers’ station, send a holo to the Jedi to tell them to pick them up, and make like a smuggler out of Core space.

Doffing his helmet, he ran a hand through his flattened hair, and started removing the rest of his armor after a brief moment of thought. If he was going to share space with the kid, he figured it would be better to look a little less intimidating. His ship said that the kid was in the kitchen. Maddyr deliberately let his boots thump on the deck plating so that he wouldn’t startle them.

The kid was devouring a mealpack like it was prime nerf steak, which it probably tasted like after who knew how long forcing down slaver’s gruel. If the slavers fed them at all…

“Hey, _ adiik _, you have enough to eat?”

They swallowed, looking suddenly guilty, and the next bite they took was smaller. “Yes, thank you.”

He sat across from the kid. Cleaned up and wearing one of Maddyr’s spare shirts, belted around the waist, the kid looked even scrawnier and paler. Their reddish-brown hair was a messy fluff atop their head. The bruise was livid against their cheek. Maddyr eyed them for a moment, then turned to reach the FA unit sitting in its charging station. His ship was too small for its own infirmary, so the kitchen doubled as one when needed. It wasn’t an unusual setup.

The little medic-droid wasn’t a full-service model, mostly it was just good for diagnostics and first aid. But it was better than what Maddyr could do by himself, especially in regard to a former-slave who might not want another organic’s hands on them.

“Please state the nature of the medical emergency,” blipped FA-63N.

“Kid, I’d like my med-bot to check you out. Is that alright?”

The kid nodded, mouth full.

“Fagen,” Maddyr addressed the droid, now floating on whisper repulsors next to the table, “please run a diagnostic scan on the kid.”

“Of course,” said FA-63N, shifting to get a better angle, and scanning the kid first with optics, then taking a small blood sample, which the kid obligingly allowed. FA-63N’s eyelights flickered as it processed the sample.

“Human, female, age approximately 10-15 standard. Underweight for the age-group, body fat and muscle percentages both in the lower quartile. Blood sugar levels low, red blood cell count low, white blood cell count elevated. Probable diagnosis: malnutrition, and incipient viral infection. Traces of sedative detected in blood, likely will be cleared through natural biological means within a standard cycle. Some evidence of blunt force trauma on face and body, nothing severe enough to threaten future health. Suggested treatment plan: regular small meals until weight increases to desired point, administer immune-booster hypospray and increase fluid consumption to ameliorate infection, administer analgesic hypospray for pain, and extended rest cycles until strength returns.”

Maddyr nodded, relief washing through him at the lack of injuries related to a particular type of abuse, and then eyed the kid. “She/her, or…?”

The baby _ jetii _blinked at him, then nodded. They stared at each other a moment before Maddyr gave her a wry look. “Well, kid? Will you let Fagen treat you?”

Her face went blank. “I can just meditate to—”

“Aw, you’re going to hurt Fagen’s feelings,” Maddyr drawled. He didn’t care what magic _ jetii _were capable of, he wasn’t about to let the girl try to meditate away her injuries. She stared at him, glanced at the droid, then back at him. It was clear she didn’t quite believe him.

“Oh, I…”

“If my services are not required, I should be deactivated and returned to my charging station, so that my powerpacks are not depleted in case of an emergency,” FA-63N intoned flatly. The medic VI had been gaining a bit of a caustic personality over the years, and sometime Maddyr could even swear it was silently judging him as it treated whatever wounds he’d gained on his jobs.

The _ jetii _squinted at FA-63N as if suspicious of the origin of the sarcastic edge in its voice, but she capitulated and allowed the droid to administer the two hyposprays without further argument.

“So, what’s your name, kid? It’d look pretty bad if I contact the Jedi and I don’t even know which of their wards I’ve got,” he added when the kid just stared at him. Her jaw firmed and she looked away. Maddyr sighed. She’d been entirely resistant to every attempt on his part of figuring out where he needed to return her to. The AgriCorps, she’d said, but they didn’t exactly advertise their headquarters. He could take her back to the temple on Coruscant, but… ugh. Just the thought made his Mando skin crawl.

“Look, kid, I’ve got to get you back to your people or they’ll think I’ve kidnapped you. Which means that when they come and find you with me, and they _ will _ come to find you, I’m either going to get a lightsaber to the vital organs or an all-expense-paid trip to a Republic penitentiary.”

“Why are you so sure they’ll come looking for me?” she muttered into her empty mealpack. He blinked slowly, unimpressed.

“What makes you so sure they won’t?” The girl’s mouth thinned and Maddyr lifted an eyebrow, waiting her out.

“They didn’t want me,” she said, finally. “None of them chose me as a Padawan, even though I’m top of my lightsaber class and got commendations from all my teachers. I was supposed to get until my thirteenth birthday before they sent me to one of the auxiliary corps, but they didn’t even give me that chance. They sent me early, because they knew nobody would pick me. Why should I go back when they’ll just send me away again?”

Maddyr suppressed a sigh. Yeah, he couldn’t exactly blame the kid, particularly when there was also the added complication that she’d been enslaved after being sent away. The Jedi would have some work to do to regain her trust, he thought.

“_ Ad’ika _, I can’t fix any of that. The only ones who can are the Jedi, and they can’t if you run away.”

“I know…” mumbled the kid. She looked completely woebegone, wilting where she sat.

Maddyr, like many _ Mando’ade _ , did not trust the Jedi. Not after a long and storied history of Mando blood being spilled by Force practitioners. Especially not after Galidraan, so recent a bloodbath. He thought them arrogant, dangerous, duplicitous. And now he rather thought them foolish. A kid that could come through such a near-miss with slavers as cool and collected as this girl would be wasted as a farmer. Hell, she’d been giving him a sitrep while still drugged, and had barely batted an eye at the sack of hands he was carrying. She was _ mandokarla _.

She was still young enough to take to the _ Resol’nare _. Young enough to adopt, if one were so inclined…

Well, Maddyr had to admit he was tempted. He liked the kid, liked her strength and the clever spark in her eye that was bright now without the drug-haze damping it. But he wasn’t an idiot. The Jedi would not take kindly to a Mandalorian ‘stealing’ one of theirs, and Maddyr was under no illusions that they wouldn’t be able to figure out what had happened. If there was evidence, any hint of trail, the Jedi pursued it like a Loth-wolf on the hunt. And Maddyr had not been trying to hide what he’d been doing, hunting those slavers.

“Obi-Wan,” the kid said. Maddyr’s gaze flicked to her, attention diverted. Her chin lifted, determined, and her grey-blue eyes stared at him intensely. “My name is Obi-Wan Kenobi. I know the Temple’s comm code; I can send them a message myself.”

* * *

The settlers received the bag of slavers’ hands with an unusual amount of satisfaction. Even though they’d hated the slavers who’d kept raiding their poor little village, they were still civilians, and Maddyr wasn’t used to _ aruetiise _civilians being so bloodthirsty. It was gratifying, though. They paid him without qualm, and even invited him to join their spontaneous village-wide celebration. He turned them down gently; he’d left Obi-Wan in his ship, and wanted to get underway to drop the kid back off with the Jedi.

He didn’t have to go all the way to Coruscant, thankfully. Obi-Wan, who had insisted on privacy for her holocall to the Jedi Temple, told him that he could drop her off on Christophsis, where the Jedi would pick her up. It was an acceptable enough arrangement, and Maddyr was glad that the Jedi hadn’t demanded he drop everything to return Obi-Wan immediately, as he had half expected they would. He hadn’t yet made up his mind on how he felt about it, though.

On the one hand, he was glad that he didn’t have to make the decision to either deviate from his bounty contract or tell the Jedi no. A bounty hunter’s reputation was his life and Maddyr prided himself on being prompt and professional, but the Jedi were dangerous to cross; it would have been a choice with no good outcome.

But on the other hand, Obi-Wan had seemed convinced the Jedi didn’t want her, and this ‘drop her off when you can’ sort of attitude made Maddyr question if maybe she wasn’t a little bit right.

She seemed to get tenser the closer they got to Christophsis. She was making a valiant effort to hide it, but she was still a child and Maddyr was familiar with the signs of someone pretending not to be nervous. He obligingly pretended not to notice.

In retrospect, he probably should have known better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FA-63N takes inspiration from the doctor in ST:Voyager, if its manner seemed familiar.


	3. Conversations

His ship settled to the ground with a gentle thump, and Maddyr slanted an unamused look at the girl who sat in the copilot seat almost vibrating with tension.

“You failed to mention there would be a welcoming party,” he said very dryly. The two Jedi masters, conspicuous in their distinctive garb, waiting outside were just visible through the flight windows of the cockpit. Obi-Wan ducked her head.

“They wanted to talk to you,” she mumbled, cheeks reddening a little. Maddyr sighed quietly. Well, he was kind of trapped, wasn’t he? Thank the fates he’d put his armor back on, in preparation for landing (it was his personal rule to never go planetside without it). He didn’t want to go to this confrontation without the assurance of its protection; it was true  _ beskar’gam _ and thus resistant to lightsabers.

Not that he expected this to turn ugly.

...He hoped.

Maddyr sighed again, and stood. “Well, might as well get this over with. C’mon, kid.”

He slipped his  _ buy’ce  _ on before they descended the ramp, his HUD linking up with the defense system of the ship, passively targeting the two Jedi masters. He let his hand hang casually at his side by the gun in his thigh holster, ready if need be, but not overtly aggressive. Obi-Wan stuck close by his side as they left the ship, and Maddyr couldn’t tell if it was supposed to be reassurance to her or him.

“An adventure, you have had, young Kenobi,” said the small, green, wrinkled Jedi in greeting. The other, a tall human man with brown skin and a bald head, tucked his hands into his sleeves and stared Maddyr down silently.

_ ‘Oh yes, this will be fun,’  _ Maddyr thought.

“Hello Master Yoda, Master Windu,” Obi-Wan said solemnly.

“Initiate Kenobi, we’re glad to see you are well. When Master Jinn contacted us with news of Bandomeer and your kidnapping, we were concerned,” the one Obi-Wan had named Windu said. His voice was deep and as stern as his appearance, but Maddyr could see his dark eyes scan the girl briefly for any obvious injuries. So he did care, at least somewhat.

Obi-Wan shuffled in place. “Then… Master Jinn is alright? Did…”

She trailed off uncomfortably, and the two Jedi masters exchanged a quick look.

“Come, wish to speak to you, I do, young Kenobi,” said the little troll, tapping away with a gnarled wood cane with the obvious expectation that she would follow.

“And I would like to speak with you, Maddyr was it?” said the other Jedi. Maddyr inclined his head, surreptitiously watching Obi-Wan follow Yoda some distance away.

“We would like to thank you for aiding Initiate Kenobi, and returning her to us,” said Windu, and Maddyr’s attention shifted back to him in slight surprise. He wasn’t really expecting a thank you, and, well… This might sound like one, but it also had an edge to it that had Maddyr’s metaphorical hackles rising.

“To be honest, I didn’t know she was even there,” he admitted stiffly. Best be as clear as possible, try to avoid misunderstandings. “I had a contract on the slavers, and it was by chance that I caught them before they sold her.”

The other man watched him impassively. “There is a lot of bad blood between the Jedi Order and the Mandalorians.”

The implied question was clear. ‘So why did you, a Mandalorian, help her, a Jedi in training?’

Maddyr’s lips twisted. “I don’t like slavers. And she’s just a kid, Jedi or not.”

Windu nodded slowly, gaze steady. Maddyr felt wary, his honed instincts pinging. “You’ve made a habit of taking out slavers, Maddyr Osan.”

“ _ Mando’ade  _ value plain-spokenness, Master Jedi,” Maddyr said bluntly, disliking that this Jedi spoke his name is if he knew him. “So perhaps you want to dispense with the veiled threats and simply say what you mean.”

Windu eyed him briefly. “Very well. We know who you are, Osan. Don’t think for a moment that you could hide from us, should we wish to find you.”

Maddyr fought the very strong desire to have his blaster in his hand, breathing slowly and trying not to obviously tense up. Windu still knew how displeased Maddyr was by the tone of his voice when he replied: “If trouble is all I’ll receive for protecting Jedi children, next time I won’t bother. I’m sure if you can find little old me, you can find your wards even if they disappear into the void of the slave market.”

Windu’s expression didn’t waver, but Maddyr had the distinct impression that he was annoyed by the response. Well, good.

“I’ve returned Obi-Wan to you, and there is nothing left to say. I’m leaving,” Maddyr said, the slightest hint of ‘I dare you to try to stop me’ flavoring the words. And Windu didn’t try.

But Obi-Wan did.

Maddyr got halfway to his ship before the girl’s voice stopped him: “Wait! Wait, please!”

He did, only because it was her, and not the Jedi. She ran toward him, her face set. She reached him and seized a gauntleted hand, turning to face the Jedi. The green one, Yoda, was just drawing even with Windu, gait laborious even with the aid of the cane.

“I’m going with him!” Obi-Wan declared, glaring at the Jedi. Maddyr felt her words like the slap of a shockwave, and his response was apparently strong enough that both Jedi could sense it with their Force or whatever, since they both looked at him as if he’d just shouted in their ears. He wrestled his emotions under control.

“Ob’ika,” he said, “I don’t know if that’s a good idea…”

“It’s what I’m meant to do,” she said firmly. Maddyr had no idea where that certitude was coming from. They had spent all of five standard cycles together; he was still basically a stranger to her. He couldn’t think of a good reason why she’d decide to leave the Jedi and stay with him.

Apparently the Jedi knew something he didn’t, because they didn’t look surprised. They did, however, look displeased. Maddyr supposed some of what Windu had been saying made a bit more sense now.

“Initiate Kenobi—” Windu said, exasperated.

“No,” she interrupted bravely, “the Force is clear. I need to stay with Maddyr.”

“Certain you are, that confusing what you want and what the Force wants, you are not?”

Obi-Wan flinched minutely before a durasteel wall slammed down behind her eyes, hiding the hurt, and Maddyr was abruptly certain that the question had just dug a deep wound into the relationship between her and the green troll.

“I know what the Force is telling me,” Obi-Wan said, admirably suppressing the waver in her voice. “This is where I’m supposed to be.”

Maddyr indulged in a bit of private cursing, then shook his hand free of Obi-Wan’s grasp so that he could reach up to tug his bucket off. Ignoring the sharp stares of the Jedi, he knelt down level with Obi-Wan. “ _ Ad’ika _ , I’m Mando. Do you understand what it would mean for you to come with me?”

She met his gaze, and he was shocked and humbled by the trust he could see in her eyes. “Yes. You’ll teach me to fight, to be Mando. I’ll follow the  _ Resol’nare _ .”

“And what do you know of the  _ Resol’nare _ ?” Maddyr asked. Obi-Wan’s gaze was steady, her face solemn.

“ _ Ba'jur bal beskar'gam, Ara'nov, aliit, Mando'a bal Mand'alor: An vencuyan mhi, _ ” she recited easily, and Maddyr couldn’t help the astonishment that ripped his eyes from her to send a questioning look at the Jedi masters. Where in all the hells had she learned that? It sure hadn’t been from the Jedi.

Windu and Yoda had peculiar expressions on their faces. Yoda mostly looked disapproving and disappointed, with a certain resigned droop to his ears. Windu looked… thoughtful, but like he wasn’t much pleased with the direction his thoughts were leading him. Neither spoke up.

“You won’t be a Jedi if you come with me,” Maddyr reminded Obi-Wan.

“I wouldn’t be a Jedi if I stayed,” she retorted. “I would be a farmer. I would use the Force, yes, but I would still be a farmer. I’m meant for a different path.”

“For bounty hunting?” Maddyr demanded, though gently. He scrubbed a hand through his hair. “Look, Obi-Wan, I would adopt you in a heartbeat if I thought it was actually a life that would make you happy, but…”

“Some bounty hunters follow a code of conduct,” Windu finally joined the discussion, “but it is never the same code as the Jedi follow. Do you understand what that means?”

“I don’t have to follow their code,” Obi-Wan said. “I can follow my own. And Maddyr is honorable.”

It was very hard to persuade her that life as a Mando  _ beroya  _ wasn’t one she wanted, when she was so calmly demonstrating a mature understanding of the situation. Maddyr had to admit she was making progress on persuading  _ him _ . He scrubbed at his hair again, distantly aware that he was making it stick up wildly.

“Ob’ika,” he sighed.

“I am allowed to leave the Order if I wish to do so,” she said. “Because I’ve not yet reached my majority, I have to be released into the care of an accepted adult, but the Jedi can’t keep me against my will. I know you’re a bounty hunter. I know you kill people, sometimes. I know you don’t always follow the law. But you also don’t cause harm for its own sake. You don’t take contracts on innocents or children. I don’t believe going with you will lead me into the Dark.”

“That’s great and all, but there’s a sticking point in what you just said. I am not an ‘accepted adult’,” Maddyr said dryly.

“Let’s not be so hasty,” Windu said. Maddyr stared.

“What.”

“Determined, young Obi-Wan is,” said Yoda. “Dangerous, it would be, to keep her against her will.”

“ _ Ke’pare sol _ !” Maddyr lifted a hand in the universal stop gesture. “Are you actually going to just let your ward run off with a complete stranger?”

The Jedi glanced at each other. Maddyr took a deep breath, jaw clenching. When he spoke, it was in a furious hiss.

“What the  _ kriff  _ is wrong with you people?”


	4. Gai bal manda

Maddyr managed to leave the meeting with the Jedi with his life and limbs intact. And with a new companion. Obi-Wan’s face shone with excitement and relief, and every time Maddyr looked at it, he was struck with the sudden terror of being responsible for her wellbeing and upbringing. This common parental worry was compounded by the fact that she had the entirety of the Jedi Order ready to take offense at any misstep Maddyr had the misfortune of committing with regard to her treatment. If anything untoward happened to Obi-Wan, Maddyr had better hope to have already died trying to prevent it, or else he wouldn’t live long enough to regret it. He supposed he should be grateful for Obi-Wan’s sake, that they cared enough to threaten him.

“Where are we going now?” Obi-Wan asked, her affect much more animated than it was prior to meeting with the Jedi masters.

_ We are entrusting her to you,  _ the Jedi had said,  _ do not think we do so lightly, or that we will not check in on her _ . Right, they’ll send their kriffing spooks after him. Maddyr hadn’t known the Jedi had spies, they’d always seemed too holier-than-thou for it, but he also wasn’t  _ too  _ surprised by the revelation; they were also hypocrites.

“We need to get you fitted for armor, before anything else. I’m not taking you along on hunts without the proper gear.”

“Jedi clothing is blaster-resistant,” she offered helpfully.

“That’s not near enough for a  _ Mando’ad _ ,” Maddyr said, wry. Obi-Wan turned wide, bright eyes on him.

“Are you going to adopt me?” she asked. Her voice was small, hopeful. She sounded so young. It had been implied that he would, and in truth he did want to. Perhaps it was ironic that a  _ jetii’ad  _ was so  _ mandokarla _ , but she seemed almost born to it. Maddyr turned from the pilot console, letting the autopilot take over for the moment, and met her gaze.

“ _ Ni kyr'tayl gai sa'ad _ ,” he said, with the weight of ceremony. Obi-Wan’s answering smile was blinding.

“ _ Ni kyr’tayl gai sa’buir _ ,” she said, even before he could instruct her in the proper response, and Maddyr wondered again how she had learned so much about the  _ Mando’ade _ . He reached out and ruffled her hair, and she looked at him like he was laying a crown upon her brow. Desperate for approval, he suspected.

He really didn’t understand Jedi.

“Does my name change to yours?” Obi-Wan asked. Maddyr gave a Mando shrug, a small head bobble from side to side.

“That’s not a Mandalorian tradition, but you can if you want. Otherwise, you’re Obi-Wan Kenobi of Clan Osan.”

She mouthed the title to herself, smiling. “I’ll make you proud,  _ buir _ .”

Maddyr swallowed against a suddenly tight throat. “I know you will, Ob’ika.”

* * *

Gom stared, eyes moving from Obi-Wan to Maddyr and back with a little wrinkle between his brows that Maddyr remembered from their childhood together.

“Don’t say it,” he sighed.

“ _ Vod’ika _ , I know last time you visited I said you should think about having your own kids…”

Maddyr groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose. His brother continued to ignore him.

“...but a baby  _ jetii _ ? Really?”

Next to Maddyr, Obi-Wan glared at Gom, her chin up and jaw set mulishly.

“How could you even tell?” Maddyr demanded. “She doesn’t wear the robes, and she doesn’t have a lightsaber.”

Gom gave him a look that clearly implied his brother questioned his intellect. Maddyr also remembered that look from their childhood. And adulthood. He scowled. “Why do I even come back here?”

The reason came in the form of two children, who had just realized their uncle was present, piling screaming from the house to team tackle Maddyr.

“ _ BA’VODU!! _ ”

The two used teamwork and the training that Gom was undoubtedly giving them to take Maddyr down in a way that was louder than it was violent. He couldn’t help but laugh, and tussled with them a moment before wrangling them both into a headlock, one under each arm. “Here, you monsters, were you raised by Lothwolves?”

“ _ Ba’vodu, ba’vodu, can _ someone have Lothwolves for parents?” asked the younger of the two, Kallu, eight years old and freshly started on his training. His elder sister Alora scoffed.

“Of course not,  _ di’kut _ , the wolves’d eat them!”

“Don’t call your brother names,  _ ad’ika _ ,” Gom said mildly. He was now holding his youngest, Karta, who would be three years old soon enough. Time flew by, Maddyr thought a little wistfully, as he released the kids. Kallu immediately seized his hand.

“ _ Ba’vodu _ , who’s that?”

“Ah,” Maddyr cleared his throat. Obi-Wan shuffled nervously, flicking glances between Gom and Maddyr and the kids. “Kallu, Alora, this is Obi-Wan Kenobi. I’ve adopted her as  _ aliit _ . Obi-Wan, these are my brother’s children: Kallu and Alora, and Kar’ika is there with Gom.”

“HI!” Karta squealed at top volume as her siblings peered suspiciously at their new cousin. An uncertain smile flickered across Obi-Wan’s face.

“Hello there,” she replied, voice soft. Karta beamed at her, then squirmed to be put down. Gom obliged, a little reluctantly, and Karta ran to Obi-Wan on unsteady toddler legs. Clinging to the older girl’s knees, Karta smiled up at her.

“Karta have dolly!” she said, and tugged on Obi-Wan’s trousers.

“Um,” Obi-Wan said. “Do you?”

She looked up at Maddyr, then Gom, as if for help, but Maddyr just watched in amusement as Karta tugged more insistently. “Dolly!”

“She wants to show you her doll,” Alora said finally; Obi-Wan looked at her with wide eyes.

“Oh, um…”

“Come on, we’ll go with,” Alora said, obviously having made a decision. She took Kallu’s hand and then led the whole group of children inside the house, leaving the two older men outside.

There was silence for a moment, as the children move far enough out of hearing, then Gom said, seriously: “I hope you know what you’re doing, Maddyr.”

“The Jedi know I have her. They released her into my custody, actually,” he defended himself. Gom shot him an incredulous look.

“How in the void did you get them to do  _ that _ ?”

“Found the kid on a slave freighter,” Maddyr scowled at the memory. “Stolen and enslaved by some  _ demagolka  _ with a grudge against the Jedi Master she was traveling with, apparently. They were both collared, but he was sent to some mining rig, she said. They sent her elsewhere; young force-sensitives are worth a lot in the right markets, you know.”

Gom muttered something darkly; he held the same opinion on slavers as Maddyr.

“You should’ve seen her, Gom. Drugged and collared, sitting there giving me a sitrep. She’s  _ mandokarla _ , mark my words.”

“So why’d the Jedi give her up?”

“Void if I know,” Maddyr scoffed. “They were sending her off to be a farmer. Didn’t know what they had in her, I think. Well, their loss.”

“And your gain.”

“She’s a good kid.” Maddyr shook his head. “Starved for affection, but I think she’ll settle out well. Good head on her shoulders.”

Gom searched his face a moment, then clapped him on the shoulder. “All my concerns aside, I am glad for you,  _ vod _ . You already do the  _ gai bal manda _ ?”

“Yes,” Maddyr admitted. “She asked.”

Gom’s eyebrows rose. “She knew what it was?”

Maddyr huffed a laugh. “That, and could recite the  _ Resol’nare _ . No idea where she learned it, and neither did the Jedi, it seemed.”

“Huh.” Gom frowned thoughtfully. Maddyr smirked at having thrown his brother for a loop.

“I’m telling you, she’ll fit in the armor perfectly.”

Gom rolled his eyes. “Alright, alright, I’ll take your word for it. Come on, it’s too quiet. Let’s see what they’ve destroyed this time.”

As it turned out, nothing was destroyed. Instead, Kallu and Alora were interrogating Obi-Wan, who had been neatly trapped by Karta settling into her lap. The toddler was slumped against Obi-Wan, sucking on one fist in a habit she really ought to be breaking, and clutching Obi-Wan’s shirt in her other hand. The former Jedi was sitting with the rigid mien of someone unused to small children who’d suddenly been ‘claimed’ by a child.

“Can you read minds with the Force?” Kallu was asking excitedly. “Can you read  _ my  _ mind?”

“Um… that’s not exactly how it works,” Obi-Wan said uncomfortably.

“ _ Buir  _ says sensitives can read intention and emotion in the Force,” Alora informed her brother officiously.

“Yes, unless the other person can mask their presence,” Obi-Wan said.

“How far away can you feel someone with the Force?” Alora asked then.

“Well, it… it depends on how strong you are, and how well you know the person, and if they—”

“If I stood up right now and started walking away, how far could I get before you couldn’t sense me anymore?” Alora interrupted Obi-Wan’s equivocation.

“Maybe two kilometers?” Obi-Wan guessed after a moment of thought. “I don’t know, I’ve never tested it.”

“We should test it, and the other stuff you can do, too,” Alora said. “ _ Buir  _ says it’s important to know your limits, and how far you can push them, so you don’t get a nasty surprise later when you need to know.”

“I’m glad to know you listen to my lectures,” Gom said in amusement from beside Maddyr in the doorway. “But right now isn’t the time for experiments. We need to get things ready for our guests, and then make dinner.”

“Obi-Wan can share my room,” Alora said immediately, and Maddyr suspected there would be interrogations late into the night. From Obi-Wan’s expression, she likely harbored the same suspicion.

“I’m glad you agree, since it’s the only place we can put her,” Gom said dryly. “Now come on, we need to find a pallet and some blankets.”

“ _ Ba’ _ !” Karta said, releasing Obi-Wan’s shirt to stretch her hand out to Maddyr. He stepped forward to gather her up, pausing to catch the doll that fell out from where it had been tucked under her little arm. It was soft, mostly, but was kitted out in a tiny plastic set of Mando armor.

“Is this your doll, Kar’ika?” he asked, holding it up to her.

“Yes!” she said, happily accepting it back into her arms. “Obi!”

Maddyr glanced at Obi-Wan automatically. The girl seemed to be blushing, head ducked in an attempt to hide it.

“Karta named the doll Obi,” Kallu said helpfully.

“Oh?” Maddyr said, amused. He was glad the children seemed to be getting along so well already; when he wasn’t on a hunt, he stayed with his brother’s family, which meant Obi-Wan would be seeing a lot of her new cousins.

The girl in question mumbled something unintelligible, cheeks growing pinker. Maddyr chuckled a little, turning to follow Gom out the room. “Come on, Osan’ade, let’s help your father get things ready.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Who's ready for OCs?!?!
> 
> Only Alora and Karta's names have significance. Alora, the first-born, from alorir, 'to lead'. And Karta from kar'ta, 'heart'. We'll spend some time with the Osan clan during Act 1.


	5. Settling In

Obi-Wan held the blaster with a firm, steady grip, though her uncertainty was written all over her face. Beside her, Alora held her own blaster with much more confidence, and Kallu waited patiently for his own turn, expression eager.

“Jedi don’t get blaster training?” Maddyr guessed, eyeing the former Jedi.

“You’d get generalized combat training as a Padawan,” Obi-Wan muttered, eyes downcast.

Ah. And she hadn’t become a Padawan.

“Hm,” he said. “Well, then, I won’t have to fix any bad habits. Come on, come up here. There are the targets. To start, you’ll just be shooting straight at the one in front of you, until you’re used to how the blaster feels.”

He waved Obi-Wan up. “But, first things first, range safety. You  _ do not  _ point the blaster any direction except toward the targets, and only when you’re at the shooting line. All other times, you keep the blaster pointed toward the ground, understand? And keep your finger off the trigger until just before you’re going to shoot. This is the shooting line; you do not cross it unless the all-clear has been given. We’ve got the blasters set to stun for now, but you need to treat every blaster as if it’s live...”

Obi-Wan nodded seriously along with his instructions, her face set with an intensity that reminded Maddyr just how determined she was for him to approve of her.

“...I assume the Jedi already instilled in you a respect for your weapons, even if that was only your lightsaber. I expect you to handle a blaster with as much respect,” he finished with.

“Yes, sir,” she nodded. He put a gentle hand on her shoulder and turned to Kallu and Alora, who had been waiting and listening patiently.

“Alora, to the line, demonstrate the stance, but don’t fire.” She and Obi-Wan were of the same age, and approximately the same size; she would be a good example. She obeyed readily, lifting her blaster to her shoulder, pointing down-range, and setting her feet with the ease of long practice. Obi-Wan inspected her stance closely, eyes narrowing slightly in thought.

“Blasters don’t have much in the way of kickback, not like slug-throwers, so your firing stance will be intended more to give your enemies the smallest target than to ground you,” Maddyr said. “Once you get used to shooting the blaster, we’ll add in exercises to train you how to move and shoot at the same time; a moving target is harder to hit.”

“Minimize the damage your enemy can do, while maximizing your own,” Obi-Wan summarized.

“Yes,” Maddyr agreed. “Now, get into stance. You, too, Kallu.”

Maddyr spends some time correcting foot placement here, a twisted shoulder there, having Obi-Wan and Kallu shifting in and out of the stance to make sure they had the feel for it. Alora, who had already mastered this lesson when she was just starting her own training, was sent off to practice her aim a few targets down.

Once Maddyr deemed them familiar enough with the stance—and tired enough of it that they were starting to become sloppy with it—he allowed them each to fire off a handful of shots. Kallu’s performance was about what was expected: He hit the outer rings of the target a couple times, but mostly missed. It was a function of being a little small for the blaster; he wasn’t able to hold his aim as steady as he might if he were bigger, and he had a tendency to jerk the blaster when pulling the trigger. Obi-Wan was a very hesitant shooter, taking a long time to aim and taking a fraction of a second longer to pull the trigger even after she’d lined up her shot. She seemed uncomfortable and nervous, though her grip on the blaster was steady.

Maddyr watched with slightly narrowed eyes. She didn’t do  _ poorly _ , but she didn’t do well, either. In fact, she was very carefully mediocre. Was she doing that deliberately? But why would she pretend to be worse than she was? Maddyr suppressed a sigh. It probably would be counter-productive to confront Obi-Wan about it here and now; she was still pretty skittish and he didn’t think an audience would be welcome for the discussion. Best leave it for later. He’d bring it up with Gom, too; his brother may have some insights as a parent as to what was going on and how to approach it.

Obi-Wan took her last shot—it landed in the second ring of the target—and carefully checked her weapon.

“Trust in your aim more,” was all Maddyr said, reclaiming the blaster with a nod. “Alright, you two. Proper blaster handling isn’t just knowing how to shoot, it’s also knowing how to care for your weapon. Come on.”

He set the two of them up a little back from the range, laying out a canvas mat that had painted labels scattered across its surface. It was a matching game to help them learn the parts of a blaster; they would be given a disassembled blaster and they’d have to lay each part onto its corresponding label. Once they were situated, he returned to Alora. She was to be instructed in the finer points of shooting as you move the same way his mother had taught him and Gom when they were young: The blaster swing.

At the end of the range was a large tree, thick and gnarled, more than strong enough to take the weight of a twelve-year-old hanging from its branches in a rope harness. Maddyr got Alora strapped in, then handed her a blaster.

“You remember the drill?” he asked. Gom had told him this would be her third time on the swing, so he subtly tested her.

“Yes,” Alora replied solemnly. “I have to switch targets with each shot, and I can’t wait until the swing stops to shoot; I’m training to shoot  _ while _ moving, not after.”

“Good,” Maddyr said, then hooked a hand in the straps to haul her to the starting point. “Five shots into each target, then check your blaster.”

He let her go, and she dropped, the ropes catching her and directing her into a wide sweep parallel to the range targets. She took two back-and-forth swings to acclimate herself to the motion, then started squeezing off shots. Maddyr watched a moment; she was doing about as well as expected. The blaster swing was tough to get the hang of, but once she got into jetpack training, it would prove worthwhile. Shooting mid-flight was significantly different from any ground combat, and took quite a while to figure out. The swing helped.

He turned his head to check on the other two. Obi-Wan was peering at the gas conversion enabler chamber thoughtfully. Kallu was staring enviously at his sister. Once he noticed Maddyr watching him, he hurriedly returned to his own lesson, the tips of his ears going red.

“You’ll have your turn on the swing,” Maddyr told the boy, amused. He remembered being just as jealous and eager when Gom was learning. “But you first need to prove yourself competent in blaster maintenance, stationary shooting, and ambulatory shooting.”

“But that’ll take  _ years _ !” Kallu protested, making it sound like decades.

“Yes, probably four years, just like your sister,” Maddyr replied, pointedly. Kallu heaved an extremely put-upon sigh, but dutifully picked up the blaster power pack and placed it on the appropriate label.

“Obi-Wan?” The girl looked up, expression open. “Will you describe what training you were given by the Jedi?”

She brightened slightly, confident on familiar ground, and obliged him.

It was… surprising. In some ways, Jedi were very similar to bounty hunters; the actions they took were often similar even if their motivations were not. Bounty hunters needed to be able to negotiate with employers, and had to manage informants and witnesses in ways that would not burn bridges that might be needed again later; Jedi were the Republic’s mediators, stepping into diplomatic incidents as a neutral party. Hunters needed to piece together evidence and timelines to track down their bounty; the Jedi had an entire branch dedicated to solving crimes and tracking down criminals. And, both bounty hunters and Jedi learned how to fight solo, in case a job went south. However, Jedi were taught a more defensive style of fighting, the expectation being that they would be trying to defend civilians at the same time, or that they had to pacify and capture their opponents rather than simply kill them.

“Astronavigation?” Kallu interrupted at one point, excited and envious. “You were learning to be a pilot? I want to, but  _ buir  _ says I have to wait ‘til I’m older.”

“Yes. Jedi are sent out solo a lot, so we… they… have to be able to pilot anything from a starship to a skimmer, if they need to.”

“Like bounty hunters!” Kallu exclaimed, putting the blaster scope onto its label. “Right,  _ Ba’vodu _ ?”

“That’s right,” Maddyr agreed absently. He was restructuring his training plans for Obi-Wan in his mind; Jedi training was very different from what he was expecting. Though he wasn’t exactly sure what he’d been expecting, just… not something that could’ve turned out a bounty hunter just as easily as a Jedi.

“What does  _ ba’vodu  _ mean?” Obi-Wan asked.

“It’s Mando’a!” Kallu replied, before Maddyr opened his mouth. “It means uncle. You don’t speak Mando’a?”

What followed Obi-Wan’s answer was an impromptu and likely minimally helpful language lesson, using whatever objects Kallu found at hand. This was interspersed by Maddyr getting up to reset Alora on the swing whenever it wound down and returning to remind them of their oft-forgotten blaster training. As he paced between the two, he stewed over what Obi-Wan had said.

_ We aren’t taught Mando’a, unfortunately. I did learn Twi’leki, though. _

And, in response to a carefully offhand question as to the curriculum of her Galactic Peoples and Customs class:

_ Mostly Core worlds, to be honest, nothing Mandalorian. _

If that was true, then where  _ had  _ she learned the  _ Resol’nare _ and the  _ gai bal manda _ ? Maddyr should ask her about it. There were a lot of questions he had for her, actually. Her actions and her words did not match up, and Maddyr wasn’t sure why. He didn’t really suspect any malice; it was unlikely Obi-Wan was some kind of spy, or plant. For one thing, it made no sense for the Jedi to use Maddyr’s family as an infiltration point into Mandalore. For another, she clearly wasn’t a very good liar.

But there was something she wasn’t telling him, about why she’d wanted to come with him. Why she’d wanted to be  _ his  _ child, in particular. She’d told the other Jedi that the Force wanted her to, but what did that mean? He didn’t know enough about how the Force worked to really know. He’d have to ask her.

He knew he’d have to be gentle with her. What he did know about her and the situation warned him from making it seem as if he regretted taking custody of her. She had been passed over and rejected enough; those parts of her story were unfortunately true. He didn’t think he would ever regret adopting her, anyway. He’d always hoped for kids of his own, liked the idea of passing on what he knew, of watching a child grow up under his protection and guidance. Family was important. It was one of the  _ Resol’nare _ , written into every code of the  _ Mando’ade _ . He wanted Obi-Wan as his daughter, knew she’d become something amazing in her adulthood, wanted to help her get there.

But to do any of that, he needed to know why  _ she  _ was here. What  _ she  _ wanted. He needed to know why she’d insisted on leaving the Jedi Order to go with Maddyr. Why and how she’d known words and phrases she’d never learned. Why she was hiding her abilities.

He needed to know why a Jedi wanted to become a Mandalorian.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I've been posting weekly so far, but I should warn everyone that this isn't always going to be the case. This chapter is the last one I had pre-written, so from here on out, whether you get a chapter depends on whether I am able to write one in the intervening week. Sorry, I usually try to keep a 'buffer' of a couple chapters so that updates aren't so subject to the whims of real-life, but well... real-life, man. I'm finishing up a graduate degree and defending in December, so my free time is at a premium. I don't tend to abandon stories, though, so even if it takes me a while to update, please be assured that I'm working on it.


	6. Beskar'gam

A few days at the Osan homestead, days of lessons alongside Kallu and Alora, days of taking meals at a large table with Maddyr, Gom, and her three new cousins, had settled Obi-Wan in a very palpable sense. Maddyr could only feel pride and gratitude toward his brother and the kids, for being so welcoming to Obi-Wan. It wasn’t every family that would accept a _ jetii _ into their _ aliit _.

Well. Perhaps some of the New Mandalorians would.

Clan Osan was not, needless to say, New Mandalorian.

In any case, with Obi-Wan settling more comfortably into her new family, and with every day building the girl into a fine _ mando’ad _, he figured the time had come.

“We’re going to get you fitted for your armor today,” Maddyr told her during breakfast. There was an outcry from Kallu and Alora; the latter was excited on Ob-Wan’s behalf, asking a half dozen questions in a single breath, and the former was jealous and wanting to go along with.

“The two of you have training,” Gom said, shutting down any arguments with a very parental tone of voice that still occasionally shocked Maddyr to hear coming from his brother’s mouth. “Training that Obi-Wan will have to make up on her own,” he added with a significant look at the girl.

Obi-Wan nodded, glancing between him and Maddyr. She knew how important the armor was for the _ mando’ade _, and was probably anxious at this weighty milestone. While she was more comfortable now, she still struggled with her fears of inadequacy.

“What color are you going to get?” Kallu asked, after he’d stopped pouting.

“Um,” Obi-Wan said.

“Different colors have different meanings,” Gom told her, deliberately casual; he’d probably picked up on her tension also. “Some _ mando’ade _decide to pick colors by the meanings. Some just pick ‘em because they like the color.”

“Oh,” Obi-Wan said. “What are the meanings?”

Excitedly, Kallu recited the little teaching-song _ Mando’adiik _learned:

“_Genet, cyare’echoy, _

_ Shi'yayc, gra’tua. _

_Shi’tal, shereshoy, _

_ Saviin, jate’kara. _

_ Ne’tra, tor, _

_ Cin, vhetin. _

_ Vorpan, Bora’enteyor, _

_ Kebiin, ruusaanyc. _

_ Ge’tal, ijaat bah buir, _

_ Vode sal’beskaryc!” _

Maddyr smiled at the boy. “_Kandosii _, Kallu!”

Obi-Wan’s brow was furrowed as she worked through the words. “_Cin vhetin _ means clean slate, right? And _ vode _… siblings?”

“That’s a colloquial translation,” Maddyr agreed, “but it doesn’t quite capture the idea. _ Cin vhetin _ translates literally to white field. It’s used to talk about something being swept clean, or a new start. White armor symbolizes something new, pure. It’s fairly rare, as armor colors go. Most that choose it do so because they work on ice planets.”

“I knew a man who painted his armor white for the meaning. Before that, his armor was yellow,” Gom said, raising an expectant eyebrow at his children. Alora got it first.

“Ohhhh.”

To Obi-Wan’s furrowed brow, Gom said: “Maybe the translation will help you understand.”

He spoke the words, forgoing the little sing-song lilt it was usually taught with:

“Grey for mourning a loved one,

Yellow for vengeance.

Orange for the joy of life,

Violet for luck.

Black for justice,

White to start anew.

Green for duty,

Blue for reliability.

Red to honor a parent,

Brethren color-armored.”

Obi-Wan blinked, her brow smoothing in comprehension. “Oh. Yellow for vengeance, then once he’d achieved it, white for a new start.”

“That’s right.” Gom nodded, leaning over to wipe away the mess Karta inevitably smeared across her face every meal. Maddyr watched Obi-Wan watch him, her expression thoughtful. He could see her sharp, bright eyes flick toward Alora, Kallu, and Karta, then trace over Gom’s grey armor. For a moment, he worried she would ask the obvious question, but her gaze flicked over to meet his, then lowered back to the breakfast sitting half-eaten in front of her.

* * *

Maddyr and Obi-Wan took the skimmer to the small town of Jinguuyr, the nearest settlement to the Osan homestead and by chance the location of the best _ goran _ on Vorpa’ya. Obi-Wan sat quietly in the passenger seat, twisting her hands around the safety harness.

After the homestead had disappeared behind them, Obi-Wan nervously asked: “Did Gom choose his armor color for its meaning?”

Maddyr sighed, somewhat having expected it but still feeling the swoop of sorrow. “Yes. Thank you for not asking him about it.”

Obi-Wan lifted her eyes to him, solemn and pale. “It still hurts him.”

It wasn’t really a question, but Maddyr nodded anyway. “Ivvesi’s death hit him hard.”

It had hit all of them hard, so close on the heels of what should have been a time of celebration. Maddyr was just glad that he’d been there, when everything had fallen apart and Gom was left with half his heart torn from him, and two young children and a newborn depending on him. Maddyr’s help that first year had given him the space to mourn, the ability to leave at times when it all became too much and he needed to be gone before it swallowed him whole. There were still times when the grief swelled again, and Gom disappeared into the wildlands of Vorpa’ya, or the far reaches of the galaxy. He always came back, which was why Maddyr never said anything to him about it, and he never left without Maddyr being home to take care of the kids.

Obi-Wan hesitated, knitting her fingers together, then promised: “I won’t say anything.”

“That may be for the best,” Maddyr sighed. “The grief never really left him, and sometimes acknowledging it makes it worse.”

Obi-Wan nodded as if she understood the phenomenon intimately. Maddyr watched her from the corner of his eye, wondering if she’d lost anybody. It seemed something he should ask, so he did. Obi-Wan looked briefly surprised, then shook her head.

“No, but… I _ know _ what he’s feeling. I can _ feel _what he’s feeling.”

Damn, damn, damn. Of course, she could feel his emotions through the Force. He’d known that, if only he’d thought about it sooner. “Is that going to be a problem?”

“No?” Obi-Wan hesitated, then shook her head and said again: “No. I can usually block it out, and it wasn’t a problem before. It was just… His pain was so _ loud _.”

Maddyr grimaced. That wasn’t the greatest thing to hear, in any respect.

“Perhaps we should get you a teacher,” he said, a little reluctantly.

“Would that be possible?” Obi-Wan asked, sounding skeptical.

“Not many _ mando’ade _ become Jedi, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t Force sensitives among us,” Maddyr said. “It’s just not something that’s talked about with people outside the _ aliit _. Usually, if there is someone with the Force in a clan, there is someone else in the clan that can teach them. If a new talent shows up, the clan will look to other clans in its House for support.”

“Do we have a House?” Obi-Wan asked, and Maddyr felt a kick in his chest at that easy ‘we’. He cleared his throat of the lump that had suddenly formed in it.

“No, not for a long time. Clan Osan was once of House Ordo, during the Great Galactic War, but the House dissolved when Clan Ordo did. Clan Ordo reformed, but the House was never re-established. All the clans that formed it are either independent, like Clan Osan, or joined other Houses.”

“Oh. But then, how could we get me a teacher, if there isn’t one in the clan and we don’t have a House?”

“We might not be formally a member clan of a House, but we still have friends and allies in other clans. There are people I could ask.”

Obi-Wan fidgeted more, gaze sliding to the side to watch the grasslands of Vorpa’ya zip by under the skimmer. “That would… I would like that.”

“Then I’ll arrange it,” Maddyr said. They lapsed into silence, which lasted until they reached Jinguuyr.

The town wasn’t very large, just a small collection of shops and houses; one could walk from one side to the other in about ten minutes. It hosted a supply store, a cantina, a junkyard, and the _ goran _. Usually, towns of this size probably wouldn’t have a blacksmith, let alone one specialized in making mando armor, but Vorpa’ya was Etten’s clanhome. After completing her apprenticeship on Concord Dawn, she’d moved to Jinguuyr and refused to leave again.

She still did a brisk business; along with making _ beskar’gam _for nearly the whole planet’s-worth of mando mercenaries and bounty hunters, she also filled her downtime with easy work, forging any number of small household items.

The small iron bell at the entrance to Etten’s shopfront resonated with a melodious tone when Maddyr opened the door, calling the _ goran _from the depths of her forge. Maddyr herded Obi-Wan in, as the girl peered around with great interest, craning her neck to see all the wares on display.

“Osan! You’d best not have dinged my plates again!” Etten shouted from the back, likely having spotted him on her security cam. Maddyr smiled, and shouted back.

“Such faith in your own work! The plates have held up beautifully.”

Etten emerged from the doorway that led back into the forge, untying the heavy leather apron that protected her as she worked. Dumping it onto a stool behind the shop’s counter, she came around wrapped him in a back-slapping embrace. He returned as good as he got, taking care with her lekku.

“_Su’cuy _, Maddyr! It’s been a while,” she said, drawing back. Her grin was bright white in the blue-purple of her face, and Maddyr watched it gentle a little as she noticed Obi-Wan half-hiding behind him. “And who is this?”

“Etten, this is Obi-Wan Kenobi of Clan Osan, my daughter. Obi-Wan, this is Etten Vel, our _ goran _.”

“Your daughter!” Etten exclaimed. “_Kandosii _ ! I am pleased to meet you, Obi-Wan. Oh, oh, let me guess: Your _ buir _has brought you here for your first armor? You look about that age.”

“Pleased to meet you,” Obi-Wan replied, and accepted the wrist-clasp greeting the Etten offered. Etten made a thoughtful noise, and flipped Obi-Wan’s hand over.

“Oh, some fine callouses. Bladework?”

“Um,” Obi-Wan said, shooting a mildly panicked look at Maddyr. He snorted.

“Just the armor for today, Etten, you can kit Obi-Wan out once she’s settled into a specialization.”

“Oh alright, spoil all my fun,” she said, though her tone didn’t waver a bit from her default of ‘cheerful’. “Come over here, Ob’ika, and we’ll get you measured. I assume you’re looking at an alloy set?”

“Yeah,” Maddyr said, propping a hip against the counter.

“Alloy?” asked Obi-Wan, standing rigidly at attention, at Etten’s instruction.

“_Beskar’gam _ , real _ beskar’gam _, is actually pretty rare,” Etten replied, wrapping a tape measure around Obi-Wan’s arm and marking the number down. “The metal ore for it is rare and the refining process long. That makes it expensive. It would be wildly expensive to have to buy all new plates every year as a child outgrew them, so most children’s armor is a cheaper alloy, or plastoid sometimes.”

“It’s so expensive even most adult _ mando’ade _ forgo it in favor of something more affordable, even if nothing beats _ beskar _for protection,” Maddyr added. Obi-Wan nodded, then refroze as Etten measured from the base of her throat to her waist.

“Alright,” Etten said, recoiling the tape. “Let’s see what I have in my stores already and if I’ll have to whip anything up custom. Most kids armor is only generally fitted—you little weeds shoot up too fast for exact tailoring to really be worth it—so I have some sets pre-made. I think I have some to fit you…”

She did, in fact, and wasted no time in settling the plates into place around Obi-Wan’s skinny frame. In almost no time at all, Obi-Wan was standing in the middle of the shop looking for all the universe like a proper Mandalorian, if in miniature. She looked down at herself, then up at Maddyr with a wide, hopeful expression.

He reached out to ruffle her hair, pride expanding in his chest. “Looks good, Ob’ika.”

“It’ll do,” Etten said, a true craftsman, finding flaws in her own work that nobody else would see. “I expect you to come back to me when you’re full-grown, so that I can _ properly _kit you out, but for now… This’ll do. So. What color do you want for ‘em?”

“Red,” Obi-Wan said immediately. “And white.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pray for Maddyr, this kid's gonna kill him with all these feels.
> 
> Uh, for the mando'a, some of it is real some of it is me taking 'creative liberties'. The color symbolism is a mix of canon and fanon.
> 
> In other news, Mandalorian drops tomorrow! Eeee! I, for one, am AMPED UP. It has all the ingredients for a good show.


	7. Destiny and Will

Obi-Wan’s plates gleamed with newness, colors crisp against her black flightsuit. Maddyr couldn’t help shooting frequent little glances at her in the skimmer’s passenger seat; how right she looked there with him, in armor. She was tracing her hands over her  _ buy’ce  _ in her lap, sweeping fingertips around the curves of the cheek pieces and the edges of the T-slit visor as it stared up at her. She seemed enraptured.

It was almost a pity to cause that bright, awed look to drop from her face. But Maddyr couldn’t fully regret his ulterior motive in taking Obi-Wan out, away from the audience of their clan members, to ask her the questions that have been multiplying and swirling around his mind for the last few days. He needed some answers, despite any discomfort it might cause her to provide them. Flying blind was asking for trouble.

That the interrogation, as gentle as it would be, coincided with the Mando rite of her first armor-fitting was intentional but not sinister. Maddyr hoped that it would reassure Obi-Wan that she was here to stay, that no matter what her answers were, she was his daughter and  _ aliit. _

The skimmer began to slow and he steered it toward a copse of trees, one of many that spotted the grasslands of the area. Obi-Wan looked up as she noticed, glancing around in confusion. Maddyr brought the skimmer to a stop and shut down the engine. He took a fortifying breath, schooled himself, and took off his helmet to look Obi-Wan full in the face.

“Obi-Wan, I’d like for us to talk.” Damn, he hated the wariness that rose in her eyes at that. “Will you tell me why you’re here? Why you insisted on staying with me?”

The muscles at her jaw shifted as she tensed, glaring down at her bucket. She said nothing. Maddyr waited a moment, then tried again: “Ob’ika, I won’t be mad. I just want to understand. I get why you didn’t want to go back to the Jedi, but you barely knew me.”

There was a long silence, but Maddyr let it stretch this time, sensing Obi-Wan’s internal struggle. He hoped, he  _ suspected _ , that she would decide to tell him, but only if he didn’t push her. She was like a wild tooka, more likely to approach you if you held still. And more likely to claw at you if you chased her into a corner.

“I’m…” Obi-Wan started, stopped. Her throat worked around words that seemed to stick. “I can…” She visibly gritted her teeth. “I’m very strong in the Force.”

That didn’t exactly answer his questions, but he let her search for words while trying to maintain as open and patient a mien as possible. She gathered her  _ buy’ce  _ against her belly, curling around it as if she feared someone would take it.

“It gives me visions. Of things that are happening, or things that are going to happen. I used to get them a lot, before I could control my connection to the Force. I’ve… I’ve  _ seen  _ you. Us.”

Maddyr wondered faintly if his eyebrows had lifted right off his face. Visions? He’d never heard that the  _ jetii  _ could see the future. He knew that they could read intent and emotion in others, and sometimes influence the same, if the target was unaware or weak-willed. He knew they could supplement themselves physically with the Force. His knowledge ended there, and he was reasonably certain that was where the majority of the galaxy’s knowledge ended as well; a  _ mando’ade  _ to his bones, he’d collected all the information on the  _ jetii  _ as could be had. If there was something he didn’t know, it was because the  _ jetii  _ didn’t want it to be known, and protected it. It wasn’t a surprise; everyone knew the Jedi Order were mysterious and insular, and void, Force sensitive  _ mando’ade  _ were just as circumspect.

“You can…” Maddyr hesitated; he couldn’t believe what he was about to say, “...see the future?”

“Sometimes,” Obi-Wan mumbled, fingers tightening on her bucket. “It’s only if the Force wants me to see something. Sometimes it’s a warning, sometimes it’s encouragement. They don’t always come true; Master Yoda always says the future is always in motion, and we shouldn’t worry too much about what we see. He says sometimes by trying to avoid a future we cause it to happen. He says we should be mindful of our visions, but not to chase them.”

“You don’t seem to agree,” Maddyr said, wry. After all, she was  _ here _ . Obi-Wan’s gaze flicked up to his face, then away again.

“No, I… Why would the Force show me something if I wasn’t supposed to do something in response? If I see something that would result in people being hurt, why  _ shouldn’t  _ I try to do something to prevent it? Maybe it will cause something worse to happen, like the Masters warn, but maybe it  _ won’t _ . Don’t I have the obligation to try to prevent suffering, if I think it’s going to happen? Isn’t that what being a Jedi is about?” Obi-Wan became more and more animated as she spoke, uncurling from her hunched posture until she was rigidly upright, nearly trembling, her face slightly flushed. Maddyr had the sense that this topic that was one of the things that had wedged a gap between her and the Order.

“All anyone can do is try to make the best decisions they can with the information they have,” Maddyr said finally, after letting Obi-Wan calm a little, and after turning her words over in his head. “I don’t know if there is a functional difference between information gleaned from a vision of the future and information deduced from present observations. Maybe what you perceive is happening in a vision is wrong, but maybe what you perceive is happening  _ now  _ is wrong, too.”

Obi-Wan looked up at him again, this time meeting his gaze and holding it. “Master Yoda wasn’t happy that I wanted to follow you. He said I couldn’t be sure that was what the Force wanted, but I am. I am sure. Maybe I’m chasing my vision, but it feels right. I was confused, when I first Saw you. You were saying the  _ gai bal manda _ , and I didn’t understand the words. It took me a year to find a Jedi who knew Mando’a well enough to tell me what it was, and even then I didn’t know what it  _ meant _ . And then you found me on the slave ship and I knew I was supposed to follow you. It felt right.”

“When did you have this vision?” Maddyr asked, confused himself that the Force had apparently concerned itself with his life, if tangentially.

“Three years ago. When Initiates are old enough, we’re taken on the Gathering. We’re sent into the kyber caverns to find our first lightsaber crystal. It’s a rite and a trial; kyber is… slightly sentient, and has the Force. It tests you, and guides you, so you find a crystal matched to you. When I was in the caverns, I had visions. This was one of them.”

Maddyr was tempted to ask what the other visions were, but almost as soon as the thought crossed his mind, he realized he didn’t want to know.

He let out a long, slow exhale. “Right. You have visions. Okay. What about the rest of it?”

“The rest of it?” she echoed, brow pinching.

“You’ve been holding back in training.”

Obi-Wan’s posture sank a little, and she mumbled something into her lap.

“What was that?”

“I learn fast, and I’m strong in the Force, so I was the top of my lightsaber class and most of the lecture classes. I  _ tried  _ to be the best, be the top, because I thought it might make the Masters want to take me as their padawan learner. But they just said that I was arrogant, and too powerful, and nobody wanted me. So I… I thought…”

“You wanted me to like you, so you held back,” Maddyr guessed. Obi-Wan nodded. Maddyr sighed silently. He and Gom had suspected this, in part; he had remembered Obi-Wan’s insistence that the Jedi wouldn’t care to get her back from the slavers, and her eagerness for acceptance.

“You know parts of Mandalorian culture that  _ aruetiise  _ typically aren’t aware of, so perhaps it’s our fault for assuming that it means you know about it all. Obi-Wan, the  _ gai bal manda  _ is binding and the only thing that can break it is if  _ you  _ decide to renounce  _ me _ . Failure of a parent is grounds to declare them  _ dar’buir _ , and it is a serious accusation in our culture. Someone who is  _ dar’buir  _ is suspect in the eyes of all  _ mando’ade _ , because being a good parent is part of the  _ Resol’nare _ .” He rested a hand on Obi-Wan’s narrow shoulder. “I’m not going to get rid of you. You’re a clever, tenacious kid with a good head on your shoulders and abilities that’ll make you a force to be reckoned with once you’re trained up. You’re  _ mandokarla _ , Ob’ika, and I’m proud to have you as my daughter.”

By this time, her eyes were swimming with tears, and Maddyr wanted nothing more than to hug her, but he wasn’t finished. “That being said, you don’t keep these kinds of secrets from your  _ aliit _ . We want to do right by you, but we can’t do that if all we know of you is a mask. I can’t teach you what you need to know if you lie about what you can do. Do you understand?”

“Yes.” The word was practically a sob. Maddyr gave in to his impulse and gathered her to his chest as her tears overflowed.  _ Beskar’gam  _ doesn’t make a very comfortable pillow, but Obi-Wan seemed to make do, fisting her hands in his half-cape and pressing her face into his shoulder.

She cried silently, shaking every once in a while with a soundless sob. Maddyr rocked her and rubbed her back gently. ‘ _ Only a week into being a  _ buir _ , and already dealing with the hard stuff,’  _ he thought to himself a little wryly, but honestly it wasn’t surprising. Adoption was very common in Mandalorian culture, and trauma in adoptees wasn’t uncommon, particularly considering the lives Mandos lived and how they usually found the beings they adopted. Working with scared, hurt children wasn’t something all  _ mando’ade  _ were good at, but it was something many of them were practiced in.

After some time, Obi-Wan’s breathing had evened out and the tears stopped, and Maddyr put a slight pressure on her shoulders to detach her from his armor. She went without resistance, scrubbing at the tear tracks on her face with her sleeves.

“Good?” Maddyr asked.

“Will be,” she replied. He nodded.

“Okay. Then one last question, Obi-Wan. What do you want from this life? I know you said that you understood what it meant that I was Mandalorian, and a bounty hunter, but I’d like you to tell me what you want from this life. You don’t have to walk my path to please me; I’m going to do my best by you, and I don’t care if that means raising you to become something other than a  _ beroya _ .”

“I...” she sniffled. “I wanted to become a Jedi to help people, and I still do. I can help people as a bounty hunter, it just means I’ll take some jobs and not others. You help people; you stop slavers.”

“That’s true enough,” he said. “You might find yourself with some lean years, if you’re picky about jobs, but it isn’t unheard of to specialize.”

“Are slavers your specialty?”

Maddyr laughed. “No, actually. It’s not a very lucrative field. Most of the people who want the slavers gone are their victims, and their victims are typically chosen to be poor and powerless to stop them; if the victims are even able to post a job, it’s not for much money. No, I don’t really have a specialty. I take what jobs I can, provided they fit my skillset and personal code.”

Obi-Wan tilted her head. “I’m glad you went after the slavers anyway. I’m glad it was you who found me. You keep saying that I don’t know you, and that I shouldn’t have come with you because I didn’t, or that I wouldn’t want to if I did. But I know enough about you that it was an easy decision to make. I’m… I’m glad you’re my  _ buir.” _

Maddyr could feel himself softening. He ruffled Obi-Wan’s russet hair, smiling. “You’re a good kid, Ob’ika. Alright, come on; let’s go home.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm still not entirely happy with this chapter, but I want to move on with the story so this is how it'll be. I hope all my American readers have a happy Thanksgiving, and that everyone else will have good weeks.


	8. Errands

Maddyr woke early and dragged himself out of bed and into the kitchen to start getting things together for the day ahead. On his way, he found his brother already up, and deeply engrossed in some elaborate coding, his computer screen limning his face with sharp light. Maddyr paused and took a closer look.

“Have you slept at all?” he asked, brow furrowing at the line of cups near Gom’s elbow, the nearest one still holding the dregs of some long-cold kaff. Gom jolted slightly, then leaned back from the screen, inhaling shakily and rubbing at his eyes.

“I had a couple hours early on, but woke up and couldn’t get back to sleep.”

Maddyr eyed the screen, but couldn’t make heads or tails of the text scrolling on it; Gom was the data-head of the family. Maddyr could  _ use  _ all of the algorithms and programs on his ship and HUD, but Gom had been the one to write them. But, even if he couldn’t tell exactly what data Gom was slicing, Maddyr knew his brother well enough to make an educated guess.

“You’re still looking?”

Gom didn’t look away from his screen, and though he didn’t respond verbally, that was a response all on its own. Maddyr sighed, clapping his brother’s shoulder with sympathy. All the reports agreed that nobody survived Galidraan, but Gom still insisted on looking for any indication otherwise. Maddyr knew the hopeless search was motivated in part by a sense of guilt; had things been different, Gom might very well have been at Galidraan, too.

Maddyr hid another sigh, and continued on into the kitchen. He wasn’t expecting an answer, and was surprised after a long period of silence when Gom’s voice rasped lowly: “I might have a lead.”

“Oh?”

Gom took a slow breath, and met Maddyr’s stare. “There were slavers on Galidraan after the battle.”

It wasn’t definitive evidence. It was hardly circumstantial; slavers popped up all over the Outer Rim, especially on colony worlds. But Maddyr couldn’t say it wasn’t _ possible _ , so he just nodded. “Can you trace the slavers? Was it a syndicate?”

If it was a syndicate, it’d be easier to trace them. Syndicates used symbols, outward signs of who they worked for, and could be tracked down to their base or territory. Freelancers or opportunists did not, and were almost impossible to pin down unless you had very good intel on their specific identities.

Gom’s expression flattened, and Maddyr almost winced. Not a good sign.

“No,” Gom said, turning back to the computer, “it wasn’t. But I’ll find them.”

The chances were low, but Maddyr wouldn’t take the hope from him. “If I can help in any way…”

Ah, there’s his brother, a spark of life in his eyes as he cast Maddyr a very skeptical look, his expression quintessential Doubtful Big Brother. Maddyr made a face at him. “Not with the slicing, obviously, but anything else.”

A flicker of a smile came and went on Gom’s face. “I’ll let you know if I need anything smashed.”

“Y’looking for a smack in the face,  _ vod _ ? Which one of us is the one that just took down a whole ship of slavers using superior tactics and precision blasterwork?” Maddyr demanded, faking indignation.

“Uh-huh. How many of my programs did you use?”

“ _ Superior tactics and precision blasterwork _ ,” Maddyr reiterated sharply. Gom snickered, stretching and getting up from his computer terminal. Maddyr turned, to hide the relieved smile that began to grow on his face, and went into the kitchen. “Anyway, don’t forget that you’re taking the kids for lessons today.”

“Yeah, I remember,” Gom replied, following him in and starting to pull dishes down to help prep breakfast.

“I’m going to take Karta and go into town for some supplies,” Maddyr said, pulling out a sack of native Vorpa’ya ibse grain from the pantry. “Since Obi-Wan was raised Jedi, I’m going to get her a vibroblade. At least some of her lightsaber training will transfer, and it’d be good for her to have a back-up she can rely on.”

“Probably a good call,” Gom allowed, and quoted: “Never ignore a potential weapon.”

Their mother had hammered that into them during their own training. Maddyr nodded. “I was also going to contact Brisshuir.”

Gom looked at him sharply. “Why?”

“The Force can be a weapon, too,” Maddyr replied, meeting his brother’s glare calmly. “And, the way Obi-Wan tells it, trying to ignore it comes with its own problems. If she isn’t trained, it could be dangerous.”

“Dangerous.” Gom’s voice was frigid.

“All the stories say  _ jetiise  _ can feel your emotions and intentions, but what they don’t say is that those emotions can influence the  _ jetii _ , if they aren’t careful. If you feel angry enough, and the  _ jetii  _ in question isn’t shielded, then  _ they  _ feel angry, too.” Maddyr watched his brother work through that, then added the kicker: “Now, imagine a poorly trained kid in the middle of a battle.”

Gom’s hard expression wavered, and fell. He sighed. “Does it have to be Brisshuir?”

“Do you know anyone else?”

“No,” Gom was forced to admit. “But going to Brisshuir means you’ll be indebted to Clan Vizsla, and you know what they’re like.”

“No, it’ll mean I’ll be indebted to  _ Brisshuir _ . You know she’s distanced herself from the Death Watch Vizslas.”

Gom grumbled. “That doesn’t mean they don’t still claim her.”

“Perhaps they do. But I believe Brisshuir will be discreet and circumspect. They can’t claim a debt they don’t know exists.”

Gom hesitated, as if he wanted to say something more, but just ended up shaking his head. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

“I’ve given it thought.”

“Just watch your back,  _ vod _ .”

“I will.”

“And tell Obi-Wan to watch hers.”

“I will.”

* * *

Etten was delighted to sell a vibroblade to Maddyr for Obi-Wan, but outraged that he was buying one without Obi-Wan present. It offended her professional standards to sell a weapon without having the intended wielder there to test the fit and feel of the thing. But Maddyr knew what he was looking for, knew the typical heft of a Jedi’s lightsaber, and Etten knew Obi-Wan’s measurements. Maddyr had a double-edged straight blade picked out and paid for before Karta shook off the sleepy stupor the speeder ride had put her in.

“ _ Next time _ , bring Obi-Wan with you, Osan!” Etten called after him as he left her storefront. Maddyr waved a hand back at her in acknowledgement.

“Obi blade?” Karta asked clumsily, muffled where she’d tucked her face into his shoulder.

“That’s right, Kar’ika, this will be Obi-Wan’s vibroblade.”

She mumbled agreeably, pressing her nose into Maddyr’s armpit. She was a sleepy weight in Maddyr’s arms, but he juggled her and the shopping they had to do with the ease of long practice. Foodstuff was returned to the speeder, sealed into the conservator compartment built into the vehicle for just this purpose, but Obi-Wan’s new vibroblade remained slung across Maddyr’s back.

Once he’d picked up a few other odds and ends that Gom had needed from the junk dealer, Maddyr resettled a now-restless Karta onto his hip and headed toward the cantina. Telet Igg, the barman and owner, ran a tight ship and didn’t allow the sort of behavior that might have made a cantina ill-suited for a child’s presence, so nobody so much a twitched an eyelid as Maddyr strode inside with Karta cheerfully babbling at his chin.

There were a series of reserved booths at the back of the cantina, built for the use of  _ beroyase _ to hold secure meetings or holocalls, equipped with every privacy measure even the most paranoid client could want. After exchanging nods with Telet, Maddyr headed straight back for a free booth.

He settled Karta down with her doll and a snack, activated the privacy screens, and then keyed in a holocall on the heavily encrypted booth comm. After a moment of waiting, the holo flickered to life. It was polarized so that only Maddyr, sitting in the call seat, would be able to see it.

“The kriff d’you want, Osan?” Brisshuir demanded. Her voice was a harsh rasp, relic of an old injury that had also left burn scars twisting up her throat and around the hinge of her jaw, just missing her left ear.

“I need a favor.”

Brisshuir’s eyebrows lowered. “Why?”

Maddyr had met Brisshuir twice before, and was not offended by her sharp demeanor; he was used to it. He answered carefully: “I’ve adopted a daughter. I believe she could benefit from a particular sort of training, beyond that which my brother and I could offer.”

She stared at him for a long moment, expression inscrutable, before the mask cracked and she gave a short, barking laugh. “Great void, Osan, you’ve really gotten yourself in it now, haven’t you? Alright. I’m feeling magnanimous. Give me coordinates for a meeting, and we’ll see about your kid.”

“I appreciate it,” Maddyr said, inclining his head. His hands went to the keypad of the comm. “I’m sending you coordinates now.”

Something beeped on Brisshuir’s end of the connection, and her gaze flicked to the left momentarily. She nodded. “Received. Give me nine cycles and I’ll be there.”

“Understood,” Maddyr said, and that was that. Brisshuir signed off, and Maddyr shut down the comm. The call log blanked automatically, another privacy feature. He sighed and scrubbed his hand through his hair. Brisshuir was abrasive, but generally principled. Force-users tended to either be more ethically sensitive, since they could sense other beings’ pain and suffering, or particularly sadistic, reveling in that pain and suffering. The latter sort usually ended up killed off by their own Clan or House, their remorseless and indiscriminate actions endangering their  _ aliit _ to the point that they needed to be put down like a rabid blurrg.

Obviously, Brisshuir was more the former type of Force-user. Her caustic personality was more a result of a difficult life: two kidnappings, an eighteen-month-long enslavement, and a life lived constantly dodging the attempts of her Clan to use her as a tool to gain power. Those experiences had also engendered a deep and fierce hatred of slavers, which was how he had met her. His habit of taking hits on slavers even if they paid poorly was the only reason he even had her comm address.

He just hoped having her teach Obi-Wan was a good idea. And that owing her a favor wasn’t going to come back and bite him.

He sighed again, then lifted the privacy screens and looked to Karta. “Well, Kar’ika, are you ready to head home?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew! Sorry it took forever to get this chapter out. Real life was suuuuper busy. Hopefully it'll chill out after this...  
Anyway, thanks everyone for the support so far. I hope you all have a great week, and I'll see you in 2020!


	9. Lessons Learned

The vibroblade was just the right length and balance for Obi-Wan, who checked it over and gave it a few dextrous twirls with a practiced ease that was mildly surprising in a child. Curious, Maddyr offered a spar.

Obi-Wan hesitated, eyes tightening at the corners with uncertainty. “Are you sure?”

“It will be a good test of your skills; I want to know where you are in your training,” Maddyr replied. Obi-Wan’s expression did not change, and Maddyr wondered if he should be insulted. “I have trained with vibroblades, Obi-Wan. It’ll be fine.”

“Are you really sure?” she fretted.

“Yeah, c’mon, kid.” Maddyr swung inside the house briefly to grab his own vibroblade, which was well-worn even if it was far from the first weapon he’d pick. He jerked his chin to indicate Obi-Wan, fidgeting by the door, to follow him to the wide area the family used for close-combat training. The grassy ground was trampled mostly bare from the hard use it saw. Maddyr paced across it before turning to face Obi-Wan, rolling his shoulders to loosen up.

Obi-Wan hesitantly stopped a few steps away, vibroblade in hand and a nervous look on her face. He brandished his blade with a little flourish. “Don’t worry, Ob’ika. We’ll spar without the blades activated; they’re too dull without the vibrations to cut through armor. I just want to see what you can do, it’ll help me know where to take your training from here.”

She took a slow breath, then blew it out. “Okay.”

It was a little like someone flipped a switch. At first, Obi-Wan was tense and awkward with uncertainty, and then suddenly... her body-language shifted. Her knees bent slightly, her weight shifting to the balls of her feet. A sense of barely-leashed energy grew about her, and her grip on her vibroblade became loose and easy.

Maddyr felt a slight stirring of trepidation. She held herself like a veteran soldier. But he did still need to see what she was capable of... 

He nodded at her. “Come at me.”

She… Well, she did. But faster than Maddyr could even see. Within a fraction of a second, she had closed the space between them, struck his blade to the side, and with a twist of her wrist sent it flying out of his hand. Maddyr blinked, Obi-Wan’s blade at his throat.

“Good,” he said finally. “Now, do it again.”

So, she did. Multiple times. It took her longer to get the advantage, since after that first startling glimpse into her talent, Maddyr took care not to underestimate her, and while he was able to best her some fraction of the time, he had to fight all-out to do so. When he finally called a halt, they were both breathing hard, and Maddyr—for all that he was feeling every second his age—was ecstatic.

“_ Kandosii _!” he exclaimed, striding over to clap Obi-Wan on the shoulder. “Good job, Obi-Wan! I see now what you meant by top of your lightsaber class. There’s nothing I can teach you… If you want to continue, we’ll have to find you someone more skilled as a teacher.”

He was careful not to seem angry that she had beaten him, or frustrated. He suspected that she had experienced such things and that it had contributed to her reluctance to spar. Instead, he focused on his fierce joy at a good fight, and the pride he had that his daughter was so skilled. As he watched, her nervous, confused expression slowly shifted to wide-eyed and hesitant hope.

“I want to learn more,” she admitted. “I like it.”

“Good,” Maddyr said. “Liking it means you’ll practice more, practicing more means you’ll improve, improvement means you will be better able to defend yourself.”

“Master Juridth said it was unseemly to enjoy a spar. That I did was a sign I shouldn’t become a Knight.”

Maddyr gaped briefly. “_ Haar’chak _, that is the most asinine thing—” he cut himself off before he could bad-mouth the Jedi further. He took a calming breath. “There is a difference between enjoying a fight and enjoying violence. A fight pushes your limits, tests your skill, makes your blood rush and your muscles work. Adrenaline and endorphins; a fighter’s high. It’s natural. Violence is none of that. Violence is a part of fighting, yes, but it is not the goal, and it is almost never the part of fighting that people enjoy.”

Obi-Wan tipped her head to the side. “_ That _ is what Master Drallig said. He said that Jedi don’t seek out combat, but must be comfortable in it, for the sake of those we protect.”

“Reasonable,” Maddyr opined. He allowed himself to add: “Never thought we had so much in common.”

Obi-Wan was smart. Obi-Wan knew exactly what he meant. She visibly hesitated, then asked quietly: “Why _ is _ there so much enmity between Jedi and Mandalorians?”

“A long and ugly past,” Maddyr said. “It’s a hostility grown over long years of finding ourselves on opposite sides of wars. Probably a large part is because of the _ Dral’Han _. Do you know what that is? The Republic called it the Excision. We call it the Annihilation, in Basic. Centuries ago, the Republic waged war on the Mandalorians, and won. Mandalore became part of the Republic, though we aren’t allowed a seat in the Senate, and our planets still bear the scars of the war. Even now, we can only live on our homeworld with the aid of hermetically sealed city-domes.” He sighed. “And, more recently, history was repeated at Galidraan.”

“I read the name, Galidraan, but I couldn’t access any of the Temple records as an Initiate,” Obi-Wan said, brow furrowed. “What happened?”

Maddyr grimaced. “Well, what do you know about the civil war that’s going on?”

“Death Watch and the New Mandalorians are fighting for control of the Mandalorian government,” she replied. “The Republic supports the New Mandalorians, but doesn’t want to intervene.”

Maddyr snorted. “That’s rich, considering they felt fine intervening when it was the True Mandalorians and Death Watch duking it out. Right, so, there was a third party until Galidraan. The True Mandalorians rallied under the Mand’alor and wanted to bring back the old warrior codes. We followed a way of honor and decency, as opposed to Death Watch’s barbarism and brigandry. Anyway, there was a showdown on Galidraan, and it was enough for the Republic to send Jedi. For whatever reason, they killed the True Mandalorians instead of Death Watch. There’s nobody left who can say what exactly happened, except Death Watch, and they aren’t talking.”

Obi-Wan was quiet for a long moment. Maddyr let her process.

“You said ‘we’,” she said.

He expected that she would notice that, sharp little thing that she was. “Yes. If things had been different, Gom would have been at Galidraan. But that was right around when Ivvesi died, and Gom was in no place to go. It still haunts him, though. He wonders if things might have been different if he’d been there. As it is, he’s convinced that there were survivors. He’s been looking for any evidence since.”

Obi-Wan nodded slowly, frowning thoughtfully at the ground. “Would you have been there?”

“Not if Gom was. One of us had to stay out of it, to keep the Clan safe and alive. And Gom was always more dedicated than I was. So, he would have gone and I would have stayed with our _ aliit _.” It had proven a very wise decision. Maddyr didn’t know what they would have done if Gom had been at Galidraan when Ivvesi died. It would have left Maddyr the sole caretaker of the children; and since they’d been so young at that point, he wouldn’t have been able to leave them to take on bounties. He probably would have had to join another Clan, or get married if he could have managed it in such short-order, to be able to support them.

“Something went wrong,” Obi-Wan said. “It’s not that uncommon for reports to be restricted, particularly for Initiates. But all of the Jedi who were involved are either dead, or they left the Order. Jedi don’t often leave. That’s a sign that something went wrong. I don’t know what, but something did.”

She looked up at him, face set with a sort of stubborn determination Maddyr was coming to learn was characteristic of Obi-Wan. “If the Order won’t help make it right, then I will. I want to help _ ba’vodu _look for survivors.”

“Ah,” Maddyr said, slightly taken-aback. “That’s maybe not the best idea…”

“It’s the right thing to do.”

“Doesn’t mean you should do it.”

“That’s exactly what it means!” Obi-Wan protested. “Maybe I’m not a Jedi, but I still have a duty to the Force, and I should make this right.”

“You may not be able to make it right,” Maddyr warned. He still wasn’t convinced that there were any survivors to find.

“I know,” Obi-Wan said. “But that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t try.”

“Obi-Wan,” Maddyr groaned in exasperation. Her chin lifted and her jaw set mulishly. “Obi-Wan, Gom might not _ want _any help. Especially not…”

“Not from a former Jedi,” she agreed. “I understand. But I should still try.”

She wasn’t going to be moved on this, that was obvious. And would it truly hurt anything if he let her? He’d broach the topic with his brother before letting her speak to him, test the waters so to speak. “Fine,” he sighed finally. “This is important to you, so fine. But let me speak to Gom first.”

Relief filled Obi-Wan’s face. “Thank you,” she breathed, nothing but sincere.

“Don’t thank me,” he said, shaking his head, “I’m still not sure if this is the right thing to do.”

“I won’t get you in trouble,” Obi-Wan promised. Maddyr snorted.

“Ob’ika, that’s really not what I’m worried about.”

Obi-Wan hesitated. “Do you think _ ba’vodu _ will be mad?”

“Not really,” Maddyr sighed. “Or, well, he might get mad at first. It’s… complicated. And it’s become… so personal to him.”

He hesitated to say more, to voice his occasional suspicion that Gom didn’t really expect to find any survivors and that the search was really just a distraction, something to fill the hole in his spirit Ivvesi’s death had left. That Gom had constructed this search for Galidraan survivors just so he could feel like there was hope that he could help someone, even if that someone couldn’t be Ivvesi.

Obi-Wan was a child. She didn’t need to be burdened with those thoughts. Even though she was likely burdened with the complicated emotions the situation drew up in both Maddyr and Gom.

“I understand,” she said, grave little face looking up at him. Maddyr reached out to ruffle her hair and did not say ‘I wish you didn’t.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Erk. It's been a while, hasn't it? Sorry about that. Real life got a bit hectic (nothing bad, just lots of things to deal with). I hope not to leave you all hanging for almost two months again in the future.


	10. Growing

Nine days after contracting Brisshuir’s help, as per their agreement, Maddyr chivvied Obi-Wan onto his ship and brought her to the arranged meet point.

Though he  _ did  _ trust Brisshuir, Maddyr wasn’t a fool, and they weren’t meeting at the Osan homestead. Not many knew of the location of their clanhome, and he really wanted to keep it that way. It was safer. Instead, the coordinates he’d sent Brisshuir were on Tallyc, a moon of Vorpa’ya’s gas giant neighbor. Tallyc was a rocky, crater-pocked thing, passed over for terraforming since it was stuck in eternal night, fixed as it was in the gas giant’s shadow at Lagrange Point 2. There were plenty of other planets and moons in-system that were better suited for agricultural terraforming, so Tallyc was left as it was. Which was fine;  _ Mando’ade  _ were adaptable and practical. Tallyc, with its topographic chaos, barrenness, and eternal darkness, had become an unofficial training ground for many young Mandos in the Vorpa’ya system. That meant Brisshuir, Maddyr, and Obi-Wan meeting there wouldn’t draw any attention, either.

This was probably the first time it would be used for Force training, though.

Obi-Wan stood in the ship’s hold, fidgeting with her  _ buy’ce  _ as she waited for Maddyr to finish his post-flight checks. Since Tallyc had no atmosphere, they would be in full sealed armor, so there were a few more steps to the checks than normal.

“Ready, kid?” he asked, coming into the hold. She jumped slightly, turning toward him. She looked anxious, before she smoothed away the emotion with her Jedi training.

“Yes,” she replied. Lied. Poorly. Maddyr lifted an eyebrow at her, and she dropped her eyes. “I, um. What about  _ ba’vodu _ ...”

Maddyr suppressed a sigh. Gom had reacted to Obi-Wan’s offer of help much the way he had expected; first with a rush of anger that Maddyr had taken the brunt of. It was largely just shouting, because Gom was mando, and a father, and whatever else Obi-Wan had been, she was now  _ aliit _ , and a child. He flared hot, then the anger fizzled out and when he responded to Obi-Wan, it was with his usual calm, steady demeanor. He thanked Obi-Wan for her consideration, and then never brought it up again. Maddyr expected it would be a lot like how Gom dealt with Maddyr’s own offers of help: With gratitude, but also with no intention of ever taking him up on it.

“Gom will manage, as he’s managed for the last three years,” Maddyr said, not unkindly. Perhaps it was for the best that Obi-Wan would be too busy with Brisshuir’s training to dog Gom about his search for Galidraan survivors. “If he needs our help, he’ll ask for it.”

“I...I understand,” Obi-Wan said, and Maddyr was relieved that it was sincere, if laden with disappointment and worry. He patted her armored shoulder.

“I know it’s difficult, but we can’t force him to accept our help.”

She nodded unhappily. He squeezed her shoulder once, and let go.

“Come on, Ob’ika, bucket on. Let’s get you buttoned up,” he said. She obliged, pulling her helmet over her head and engaging the seal at her throat. Maddyr carefully and methodically checked over her suit, making sure all the seals were properly engaged and she wouldn’t be inadvertently exposed to hard vaccuum. Once he was done, it was his turn to get checked over. He also had a sensor system that did safety checks for him when he was alone, but it was good habit to double check, in case something was wrong with the electronics and it was giving false readings. Obi-Wan would have to get used to it all, new as she was to  _ beskar’gam _ , and practice was always good.

Once both of them were confident they wouldn’t explosively decompress stepping out of their ship, they headed toward the rendezvous. They waited only a couple minutes before Brisshuir appeared; Maddyr suspected she’d been waiting nearby, to make sure this wasn’t a trap. It was the sort of paranoia that characterized Brisshuir.

Brisshuir’s armor was a gleaming metallic gold over a deep red flight suit. Maddyr suspected the colors were chosen deliberately as a warning, bright and obvious like the patterning of a venomous creature. There were spikes along the brow of her  _ buy’ce _ , so that if she headbutted someone who wasn’t in armor, it would do them considerable damage. Her gloves were similarly spiked at the knuckles.

Maddyr could feel Obi-Wan tensing with wariness at the sight of her. It was fair; Brisshuir was one of the most intimidating  _ mando’ade  _ Maddyr had ever met. She strode up to them and stopped a couple feet away, the T-visor of her helmet canting down then up as she gave Obi-Wan a once-over.

“So this is your kid, Osan,” she said finally. “I can see why you contacted me.”

What did that mean? Maddyr looked at Obi-Wan too, but all he saw was a young  _ mando’ade _ no different from her new cousins. Perhaps sensing his perplexion at the comment, Brisshuir added: “The first thing I’ll teach her is how to hide her Force signature. It’s a little… obvious.”

“Oh,” Obi-Wan said with a note of epiphany. “You’re shielding yours!”

“Yep,” Brisshuir replied. “It’s a dangerous galaxy, kid. Particularly for us.”

Obi-Wan nodded. “Force-sensitive slaves are worth a lot.”

Maddyr grimaced. Brisshuir tilted her head. “Found that one out already, huh?” she said, dry.

“ _ Buir  _ found me on a slave ship,” Obi-Wan said, like it hadn’t been just a few months ago. Like she didn’t still sometimes wake scratching at her throat where the collar had been. Brisshuir went still.

“He didn’t get around to telling me that.” Her voice was flat, even through her bucket’s vocoder. He heard the demand in it.

“They’re dead,” he said. Brisshuir gave him a nod. He nodded back.

“Well alright, then,” Brisshuir said briskly. “Come along,  _ ad’ika _ . Osan, you can pick her up here in five days.”

“ _ Me’ven _ ?” Maddyr said, hearing his own voice climb in surprise.

“Go on,” Brisshuir said, shooing him with a flapping hand. “We’ll be fine, won’t we, Obi-Wan?”

“What? Oh. Yes! We’ll be fine,” Obi-Wan replied. She seemed distracted. “I… How are you doing that?”

“Yeah,” Brisshuir said, sounding amused. “We’ll be fine, Osan. Go take a job for a couple days. Or kick up your feet at home, I don’t care. But you’ll just be a distraction here, so whatever you do, do it elsewhere.”

Maddyr hesitated. He reminded himself that he trusted Brisshuir. He reminded him that Obi-Wan needed this training. That she had emergency protocols on her suit’s network, and she could employ them if needed.

He still didn’t want to leave her.

He still probably had to.

Maddyr took a subtle, deep breath. Let it out. “Alright. Alright. Obi-Wan, you have my comm code if you need it.”

Obi-Wan nodded, then, after an obvious hesitation, hugged him ‘round the middle, their armor plates clacking together. He returned the embrace firmly, understanding his brother just a little bit better in that moment. They parted and he turned his  _ buy’ce  _ toward Brisshuir.

“And Brisshuir:  _ Ulyc. Ni shab’rud’ni. _ ”

“ _ Elek _ ,” she replied, just as seriously. Maddyr hesitated again, briefly, then squeezed Obi-Wan’s shoulder and turned and left.

* * *

He did what Brisshuir suggested, in the end, and took a short bounty. In-system, one-time, and an information hunt. It occupied him relatively well, for the five days Brisshuir wanted. Once he’d delivered the bounty and gotten his credits, he headed back to Tallyc. He was a little early, but that was fine. He waited on his ship, passing the time by trawling the bounty postings for anything of interest. He’d lazily tagged three to check on later when his proximity alert went off. Outboard vid showed two armored figures approaching on foot.

He suited up and went out to meet them.

“ _ Buir _ !” Obi-Wan said cheerfully, and fairly  _ bounced  _ to him. He couldn’t see her face through her bucket, but he could just tell she was beaming. Something in his chest relaxed.

“Hey Ob’ika. How’d it go?”

“She’s surprisingly  _ mandokarla  _ for a  _ jetii _ ,” Brisshuir said, joining them just a couple steps behind.

“Brisshuir doesn’t think like a Jedi,” Obi-Wan said, ignoring Brisshuir’s muttered  _ thankfully _ , “and the way she uses the Force is different. She has a lot of techniques I don’t think the Jedi even  _ know  _ of!”

“I’m glad you learned something,” Maddyr murmured.

“Ob’ika has much more to learn,” Brisshuir told him frankly. “I hope you didn’t expect this to be a one-and-done sort of thing. This requires sustained training just as much as learning how to fly a ship does.”

“I figured,” Maddyr agreed. “So, what now?”

“I’ll meet with her monthly, going forward. Same thing as this time. Does that suit?”

He might have to persuade Gom to drop Obi-Wan off, if he was off on a job when the time came around again, but otherwise… He glanced at Obi-Wan, who seemed to catch the inquisitive look through his visor and nodded quickly. Maddyr looked back to Brisshuir. “That’s fine.”

“Good.” She gave a nod and started walking away. She wasn’t much for pleasantries.

“ _ Vor entye,  _ Brisshuir!” Obi-Wan called after her. The cantankerous mando didn’t respond. Obi-Wan turned toward Maddyr, apparently not at all put off by the brusque dismissal. “Time to go home?”

“Yeah, let’s go home,” Maddyr replied, turning toward the ship. “You liked Brisshuir, then?”

“She’s a good teacher.” Obi-Wan said thoughtfully. They tramped up the loading ramp, and Maddyr hit the airlock controls. “She feels angry, but she doesn’t let it touch her. It’s… different from what a Jedi would do.”

“Is that good?” Maddyr asked, as the hold sealed and repressurized. Once the lights were green, he popped the seal of his  _ buy’ce _ . Obi-Wan tugged hers off as well.

“I don’t know yet,” she said, face earnest and solemn. “But, I’m not a Jedi anymore. So I should learn how other Force-sensitive people do things.”

“You don’t have to give up everything Jedi,” Maddyr said, slightly discomfited that she felt she had to. “There is plenty of useful stuff they taught you. Like your lightsaber combat.”

“I know,” she said. “But I don’t have to keep the things I disagreed with.”

“That is true.” Maddyr started up the ship’s engines and navcomputer.

“ _ Buir _ ?” Obi-Wan said. He paused and looked at her. “Thank you.”

His expression softened. “Of course, Ob’ika.”

The silence as they made their way back to the Osan homestead was warm and comfortable.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy shit you guys. Shit is straight up surreal in the world. Keep safe, you guys!


	11. Appendix

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know it might disappoint some of you that this isn't a real chapter, but never fear. I am also posting the first chapter in the next act of this story today. I've decided to split the story into different works (making this a series), see my note below for more info.

**Glossary**

A note on mando’a. This isn’t a fully-realized language (not like Klingon or Sindarin), so it’s missing a lot of vocabulary, and frankly it has no logical grammar or pronunciation. Authors using it basically just have to make up a lot to fill in the gaps, so don’t feel like the way I work with it is The Way or anything.

I get a lot of the extant vocab from mandoa.org, which is a great database that even has a search option! And some of the cultural things I dragged in from wookiepedia. Some things I just made up.

**Words**

_ adiik _ \- a child age 3-13

_ ad’ika _ \- diminutive form of ‘ad’ (child); kid

_ aliit _\- clan, family

_ aruetiise _\- outsiders, foreigners (singular: aruetii)

_ ba’vodu _\- uncle or aunt (not gender specific)

_ beroya _\- bounty hunter

_ beskar’gam - _‘iron skin’, mandalorian armor

_ buir - _parent

_ Buy’ce - _mandalorian helmet

_ dar’buir _ \- a parent who has been denounced, disowned (a serious failing in Mandalorian culture)

_ di’kut _ \- idiot

_ Demagolka’se _\- people who commit atrocities, named after a mando scientist who experimented on children (singular: demagolka)

_ Dral’Han - _The Annihilation, a terrible war between Mandalore and the Republic that left the worlds of Mandalore scarred and destroyed

_ Elek _ \- yes

_ Haar’chak _\- damn, damn it

_ jetii _\- Jedi

_ kandosii _ \- Nice! Good job!

_ Mand’alor _\- historical ruler of Mandalore, merit-based

_ Mando’ade _ \- children of Mandalore, Mandalorians

_ Mandokarla _ \- having the ‘right stuff,’ being of Mandalorian spirit

_ me’ven _ \- expression of bewilderment or disbelief

_ Resol’nare _\- the Six Tenets of Mandalorian life

_ Su’cuy _ \- shortened form of ‘su cuy’gar’ (you’re still alive), a general greeting

_ ulyc _ \- careful

_ Vod’ika _\- diminutive form of ‘vod’ (sibling); little brother/sister

**Phrases**

_ “Ba'jur bal beskar'gam, Ara'nov, aliit, Mando'a bal Mand'alor: An vencuyan mhi.” _\- the Resol’nare. Education and armor, self-defence, our clan, our language and our leader: All help us survive.

_ “Gai bal manda.” _\- name and soul, the Mandalorian adoption ceremony

“_ Genet, cyare’echoy, / Shi'yayc, gra’tua. / Shi’tal, shereshoy, / Saviin, jate’kara. / Ne’tra, tor, / Cin, vhetin. / Vorpan, Bora’enteyor, / Kebiin, ruusaanyc. / Ge’tal, ijaat bah buir, / Vode sal’beskaryc!” _\- A learning song I made up about traditional meanings behind armor colors. Some of the meanings are fanon and some are canon. Also, some of the words don’t exist in Mando’a, so I had to make them up. Cyare’echoy came from the words for loved one and mourn, bora’enteyor from job and obligation, sal’beskaryc from color and armored. Shi’tal combines parts of other colors to make a word for orange (ie Shi’yayc (yellow) + ge’tal (red) = shi’tal (orange))

_ “Ke’pare sol!” - _Hold on a minute! Wait!

_ “Ni kyr'tayl gai sa'ad.” - _words of the gai bal manda. I know your name as my child. (I added in a responding line replacing ad with buir)

_ “Ni shab’rud’ni.” - _Don’t mess with me. (Strong warning)

_ “Vor entye.” _\- thank you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So a little explanation might be in order, since I've changed up the tags and stuff for this. I've decided to make this fem!mando!Obi-Wan AU into a series of works. I am finding that, with the timeskips and the POV changing that I want to use in the telling of this story, I like the structure of separate works more than trying to post everything into one long work. So while "Awaken Every Dragon" is 'complete' the story of Obi-Wan Kenobi of Clan Osan is not finished. The first chapter of the next work, "Here We Are, Don't Turn Away" is going up today also, so you don't have to wait extra. I hope you still stick with me!


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